PEIHGETOIT 
Hii^,  APR   1884 

THEOLOGICAL 

MumKtk 


Dlvlslon.^,SS30 
Section  „jVVr5*S' 
No, 


THE 


SILENCE   OF  SCRIPTURE, 


BY   THE 


REV.    FRANCIS   WHARTON,   D.  D.,  LL.  D. 

RECTOR  OF  ST.   PAUL'S  CHURCH, 
BROOKLINE,    MASS. 


^m 


BOSTON: 

E.   P.    BUTTON   AND   COMPANY, 

©Hrcjj    3PubUst)ers. 

1867. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1867,  by 

E.   P.   DUTTON  AND  COMPANY, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


riverside,  cambridge: 

;T'£R£Otyp£d  and  printsd  bt 

h.  0.  houghton  and  company. 


PREFATORY   NOTE. 


The  following  pages  include  the  substance  of  a  series 
of  sermons  delivered  in  the  usual  parochial  service  at 
Brookline.  My  object,  for  the  purposes  of  the  pulpit, 
was  to  notice  the  practical  inferences  to  be  drawn  from 
the  Silence  of  Scripture,  in  some  of  those  instances  in 
which  this  Silence  is  most  marked.  Although  Dr. 
Wordsworth  speaks  the  common  opinion  of  most  com- 
mentators when  he  tells  us  that  the  Silence  of  God's 
Word  is  itself  inspired,  yet  the  subject  is  one  which  has 
been  comparatively  unexplored.^  In  the  course  of  my 
investigations  of  the  extent  and  teachings  of  this  Si- 
lence, particularly  in  the  New  Testament  records,  the 
materials  in  my  hands  so  expanded  as  to  adapt  them  to 
the  press  rather  than  the  pulpit.      I  have  concluded, 

1  The  only  instances  in  which  the  subject,  so  far  as  my  reading  in- 
forms me,  is  distinctively  considered,  are  to  be  found  in  the  sections  on 
the  "  Omissions  in  Scripture,"  contained  in  Archbishop  Whately's 
Essays,  and  in  his  Cautions  for  the  Times  ;  in  Canon  Miller's  Lecture 
on  the  Silence  of  Scriptures,  delivered  before  the  London  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association,  in  1858;  and  in  the  Rev.  Robert  Hall's  re- 
markable sermon  On  (he  Glory  of  God  in  Concealing. 


IV  PREFATORY    NOTE. 

therefore,  to  place  them  in  the  present  channel ;  and 
I  earnestly  pray  that  this,  the  consideration  of  the  Si- 
lences of  the  Divine  Text,  may  make,  to  all  in  whose 
hands  these  pages  full,  those  utterances  which  are  re- 
vealed not  only  more  distinct,  but  more  precious,  as 
containing  God's  sole  and  exclusive  message  to  man. 

F.  W. 
Brookline,  February  25, 1867. 


mti^ets  Eorlr,  iDf)0  fjajSt  tm^e^  all  l^olg  ^orijituroi  to  fie 
iDxitttn  far  aux  teaming :  jarant  tf)at  toe  mag  in  iut^  iaiit 
l^car  tf)em,  realf,  marfe,  Irarn,  antr  intoartrlg  IrifleiSt  ti^em, 
tf)at,  fin  patience  antr  comfort  of  Cl^g  ?^oXm  ^X^ortr,  toe  mag 
embrace,  anU  eber  l)aXis  fajSt  ti)t  l^ope  of  eberla^tinjs  life, 
tD!)icib  Cnbou  I)a^t  Qibtn  u^  in  our  ^afaiour  Sle^itij  Cl^riiSt. 


MiO.  APR   ;884 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  I. 

THE  CREATION   OF  THE  WORLD. 


PAOX 


Antecedent  probability  of  reserve  in  Divine  revelation i 

Hence  the  Silence  of  revelation  has  its  particular  teaching,  and 

is  itself  inspired 2 

This  silence  considered  in  reference   to   the   creation  of  the 

world 3 

Curiosity  felt  by  men  in  the  details  of  creation 3 

A  revelation  constructed  by  man  would  seek  to  gratify  this 

curiosity 3 

On  the  other  hand,  the  details  given  by  Scripture  are  few  and 

meagre 3 

They  leave  almost  every  thing,  except  the  Divine  authorship, 

undetermined 4 

Reasons  for  this  silence 5 

1.  A  premature  revelation  of  science  would  not  be  likely 

to  be  accepted  as  a  revelation  of  religious  truth 5 

2.  If  accepted,  it  would  paralyze  the  intellectual  energies, 
and  weaken  faith  and  humility 7 

3.  A  perfect  revelation  of  science  would  not  meet  the  spir- 
itual wants  of  man 8 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  EVIL. 

Probability  that  a  man-made  religion  would  attempt  a  solution 
of  the  origin  of  evil lo 


VIU  TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 

PAOB 

Silence  of  Scripture  on  this  point lo 

This  silence  analogous  to  the  silence  of  Nature 1 1 

Nature  gives  no  clew  to  this  great  mystery 13 

Lessons  to  be  learned  from  it 13 

1.  Limitedness  of  our  faculties 13 

2.  Existence  of  a  spirit  of  evil 15 

His  nature 15 

The  restraints  on  his  power 15 

His  ultimate  overthrow 16 


CHAPTER   III. 

DIVINATION. 

Divination  a  chief  feature  in  man-made  religions 18 

The  universality  of  the  superstitions  it  appeals  to 19 

Christianity  the  sole  religious  system  that  does  not  recognize 

this 21 

Lessons  to  be  derived  from  this 21 

1.  Absolute  dependence  on  God 21 

2.  Benefits  of  this  veiling  of  the  future 22 

Our  blindness  to  the  future  is  the  parent  of  energy, 

fortitude,  and  patience 22 

Without  it  we  could  but  illy  bear  disasters,  bereave- 
ments, or  future  shocks 23-25 

Christ  bore  for  us  the  foreknowledge  of  sorrow 26 

Christ  the  Averter 27 

CHAPTER   IV. 

LITURGY. 

No  form  of  liturgy  prescribed  in  the  New  Testament 28 

Such  an  omission  unprecedented  in  ecclesiastical  history 28 

Causes  of  this  omission 29 

Not  as  connected  with  disapprobation  of  a  liturgy 29 

A  liturgy  used  by  our  Lord 29 

And  adopted  by  the  early  Church 29 

And  most  fitted  for  public  worship 29 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS.  IX 

PAQK 

1.  But  as  based  on  the  truth  that  prayer  is  not  maris  me- 
chanical repetition  of  Gocfs  precepts  but  man's  volutttary     . 
response  to  Gocfs  revealed  Word 30 

Formularies  become  mechanical  just  to  the  very 
extent  to  which  they  are  regarded  as  arbitrarily 
imposed 30 

Prayer,  to  be  acceptable  to  God,  must  be  the  action 
of  individual  intellect  and  heart 30 

2.  Liturgical  liberty  essential  to  church  universalization.  .     32 

The  Church  to  comprehend  all  phases  of  nationality 
and  culture  and  temperament,  and  to  adapt  itself  to 

each 33 

Liturgical  flexibility  in  Primitive  Church 34 

Importance  of  such  flexibility  now 35 

Prayer  always  to  be  individual 36 

Revelation  is  of  God:  Prayer,  of  Man 36 

CHAPTER  V. 

CREEDS. 

Creeds  and  catechisms  necessarily  used  in  the  apostolic  teach- 
ing      37 

Their  omission  only  to  be  accounted  for  by  Divine  direction.  .     38 

Reasons  to  be  supposed  for  such  omission 38 

I.  Such   a   compendium    would    supersede    the    present 

Scriptures 38 

(a.)  Patient  induction  would  be  no  longer  exercised. .     38 

Analogy  between  Scriptures  and  Nature 39 

Neither  in  themselves  systematic 40 

Both   must   be   studied  to  draw  out  systematic 

truth 41 

Wide  and  varied  field  of  induction  presented  by 

Scripture 41 

Important  moral  and  mental  qualities  exercised 

in  this  induction 42 

(b.)  Such  a  compendium  would  make  man  the  omnis- 
cient reflection  of  an  omniscient  God 43 

(c.)  By  such  a  process  spiritual  assimilation  would  be 
destroyed 43 


X  TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 

PAOB 

2.  Such  a  compendium  would  imperil  church  universaliz- 

ation 44 

Christ  Himself  universal 45 

Universal  relations  of  Scripture ....    46 

Adaptation  to  various  temperaments 46 

Representativeness  of  the  several  inspired  teachers. .  46 

Illustrated  by  St.  Paul  and  St.  John 47 

Converging  roads  of  access  to  the  cross 48 

Illustrated  by  predestinarian  controversy 48 

Doctrine  of  conversion 49 

I.  Objections  to  this  position. 

1.  That  this  leads  to  universal  license 50 

Answer. 

(a.)  The  only  escape  of  heresy  is  in  vitiating  the  text.     50 

{d.)  The  objection  applies  with  equal  strength  to  arti- 
cles and  creeds 5  ^ 

{c.)  Doctrinal  formularies  often  open  new  points  of 
departure 5^ 

{(/.)  There  is  an  especial  promise  of  grace  attached  to 
the  reading  of  Scripture 52 

{e.)  Religious  indifferentism  apt  to  be  produced  by  an 
alleged  infallible  church  test 53 

2.  That  by  this  position  creeds  are  superseded 54 

Answer. 

{a.)  The  creed  thereby  acquires  its  true  force,  as 
man's  response  to  God,  as  revelation  is  God's  utter- 
ance to  man 54 

[b.)  A  creed  is  a  protest  against  error 56 

{c.)  Creeds  and  articles  become  thus  the  tests  of  indi- 
vidual membership  in  the  church 57 

No  one  not  accepting  has  a  right  to  remain  in  the 
church  that  imposes  them 58 

II.  Practical  consequences  of  this  truth  that  all  doctrine  is  to 
be  verified  fi-om  Scripture. 

1.  Devout  care  in  reading  the  sacred  text 59 

Rules  for  such  study 59,  60 

2.  Toleration  of  those  who  differ  on  points  which  the  sa- 
cred text  does  not  determine 60,  61 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS.  XI 

CHAPTER   VI. 

THE   VIRGIN    MARY. 

PAGE 

Silence  of  Scripture  on  whatever  would  draw  our  thoughts 

from  the  worship  of  Christ 64 

This  peculiarly  the  case  as  to  the  Virgin  Mary 64 

Others  employed  as  missionaries  —  she  never 65 

Others  invested  with  supernatural  power  —  she  never 66 

Others  spoken  of  as  counselors  —  she  never 66 

Cause  of  this  silence  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  God  screens 
from  us  whatever  would  draw  us  from  the  great  central  truth 

of  revelation  —  God  manifest  in  the  flesh 68 

1.  The  nature  of  this  truth 68 

Christ  the  one  perfect  and  universal  Man ...     69 

As  such  He  is  the  sole  Mediator  for  all,  whatever  be 
their  temperaments,  or  rank,  or  nation 70 

2.  The  danger  to  this  truth,  from  the  imwillingness  of  the 
natural  heart  to  adtnit  in  the  Godhead  those  qualities  of 
sympathy  arui  of  tenderness  toxuard  man  which  are  essen- 
tial to  a  true  belief  in  the  incarnation  of  Christ 7 1 

Illustration  of  this  tendency  in  the  Church  of  Rome, 
which,  from  divesting  Christ  of  his  perfect  and  all- 
sjnmpathizing  Humanity,  has  proceeded  to  set  up 
human  mediators  in  His  place 75 

3.  The  lessons  of  Christ's  Humanity  as  thus  brought  be- 
fore us 75 

{a.)  His  oblation  and  satisfaction 76 

{b.)  His  elevation  of  humanity 76 

(<:.)  His  intercession  as  Man 77 

{d.)  The  union  of  His  people  with  Him  in  glory 77 

Application  of  this  doctrine  to  our  practical  life 78 

CHAPTER   VII. 

THE   lord's    personal  APPEARANCE,    AND    ITS   RELATIONS. 

The  tendency  to  commemorate  the  appearance  of  a  departed 

friend,  almost  universal 80 

Silence  on  this  topic  in  the  sacred  narratives 81 


am  TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 

PAOX 

This  silence  not  to  be  attributed  to  want  of  affection 82 

Nor  to  want  of  circumstantiality 82 

Nor  to  scantiness  of  personal  association 83 

But  to  the  divine  purpose  to  withdraw  us  from  the  local- 
ization and  materialization  of  God  ift  epoch,  or  image,  or 

shrine 86 

Express  warnings  against  this  tendency 86 

I.  The  deep-seatedness  of  this  tendency 87 

(a.)  As  to  epochs  and  anniversaries 87 

(d.)  As  to  relics  and  images 88 

(<r.)  As  to  shrines 89 

{d!)  As  to  Christ's  merely  human  example 91 

The  acknowledgment  of  this  truth  does  not  prevent  the  Church 

from  establishing  commemorative  days 93 

They  must  be,  however,  to  edification 93 

Danger  of  numerous  holidays 94 

Value  of  Christmas  and  Lent .' 95 

Caution  as  to  use  of  such  days 96 

Christ  not  to  be  localized  in  temple  or  altar 97j  98 

True  honor  to  be  paid  to  the  sanctuary 98,  99 

Christ  not  to  be  localized  in  a  path 100,  loi 

But  to  be  received  as  the  divine  Source  of  strength loi 

Christ's  divine  as  well  as  His  human  nature  thus  guarded  by 

the  silence  of  the  revealed  text 102-104 

Conclusion 104 


APPENDICES. 

APPENDIX   A. 

Creeds,  not  finalities 107 

APPENDIX   B. 

Christ,  the  sole  sinless  Sympathizer I08 

APPENDIX  c. 

Our  Lord's  Personal  Appearance 1 14 

APPENDIX    D. 

Christ  not  to  be  localized  in  a  path 118 


THE 

SILENCE   OF  SCRIPTURE. 

CHAPTER  I. 

THE  CREATION  OF  THE  WORLD. 

IN  a  divine  revelation,  we  must  expect  many  points 
of  information  to  be  reserved.  You  send  a  child, 
for  instance,  on  an  errand  to  a  distant  street ;  and 
you  give  him  the  street's  name,  and  the  number  of 
the  crossings,  and  repeat  to  him  perhaps  more  than 
once  his  particular  business  ;  but  you  do  not  detain 
and  perplex  him  by  either  a  history  or  a  panoramic  ex- 
position of  the  city  he  visits.  "  When  I  was  a  child, 
I  spake  as  a  child ; "  and  the  converse  is  also  true : 
"  When  I  was  a  child,  I  was  spoken  to  as  a  child  : 
such  knowledge  was  given  to  me  as  was  proper  for 
my  childhood's  estate."  And  even  in  our  manhood, 
and  in  reference  to  our  fellow-men,  there  are  always 
topics  as  to  which  we  are  more  or  less  ignorant, 
and  as  to  which  speculative  information  is  withheld. 
Thus  a  government  sends  forth  a  colonist ;  but  gives 
him  just  information  enough  to  enable  him  to  per- 
form his  particular  work.  A  general  charges  an  inferior 
officer  with  a  special  duty,  but  here,  too,  there  is  silence 
as  to  whatever  does  not  belong  to  this  duty.  To  en- 
1 


2  THE   SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

large  the  official  directions  given  in  either  case  so  as  to 
include  all  the  knowledge  the  superior  may  possess, 
would  perplex  the  agent,  and  withdraw  his  attention 
from  that  which  concerned  his  work  to  that  which  did 
not  concern  it.  And  if  we  are  to  expect  such  silence  in 
a  parent's  dealings  with  a  child,  and  in  a  government's 
dealings  with  a  subaltern,  how  much  more  reason  have 
we  to  expect  it  in  the  dealings  of  God  with  man.  God 
knows  all  things  and  endures  from  eternity  to  eternity  : 
man  comes  into  the  world  knowing  nothing  ;  lives  at 
the  best  a  life  which  endures  for  a  few  years  ;  and  in 
this  short  life  is  charged  with  the  momentous  question 
of  settling  his  own  destiny  for  the  eternity  to  come. 
Silence,  then,  on  all  irrelevant  questions  is  what  we 
would  expect  in  the  revelation  of  an  all-wise  God  ;  and 
of  the  irrelevancy.  He  is  the  sole  judge. 

Hence  it  is,  for  the  purpose  both  of  pointing  out  this 
irrelevancy  and  of  concentrating  our  attention  on  those 
topics  which  revelation  presents  to  us,  God's  silence 
in  the  inspired  record  has  been  considered  by  devout 
minds  as  only  inferior  in  importance  to  His  express 
utterance.  "There  is  such  fulness  in  that  book,"  says 
Boyle,  "  that  not  only  its  expression  but  its  silences  are 
teaching,  like  a  dial  in  which  the  shadow  as  well  as  the 
light  informs  us."  So  Archbishop  Trench  speaks  of  the 
Bible's  silence  as  being  more  expressive  than  other 
books'  speech  ;  ^  and  Dr.  Wordsworth,  of  the  silence  of 
revelation  as  in  itself  inspired  ;  ^  and  Dr.  Arnold,  of  in- 
spiration, being  marked  by  what  it  does  not  say  as  well 
as  by  what  it  does.*     In  expansion  of  this  thought,  I 

1  Hulsean  Lectures,  1845.  — Lect.  VI.    (Am.  ed.  p.  86.) 

2  Occasional  Sermons,  XII.  p.  100. 

*  Sermon  on  the  Interpretation  of  Scripture,  p.  9,  &c. 


THE  CREATION  OF  THE  WORLD.  3 

propose  to  take  up  for  exposition  and  application,  some 
of  the  points  in  which  this  silence  may  be  observed. 

First,  then,  comes  the  question  of  the  creation  of  the 
world.  A  passion  for  antiquarianism  is  common  enough ; 
and  men  have  not  been  few  who  have  spent  their 
lives  in  the  deciphering  of  inscriptions  and  the  collec- 
tion of  relics.  The  fascination  of  historical  study,  if  not 
so  absorbing,  is  more  widely  spread ;  and  in  proportion 
as  the  dignity  of  a  character  rises,  our  curiosity  is 
sharpened  to  possess  ourselves  of  the  pettiest  details  of 
his  life.  How  natural,  then,  the  eagerness  with  which 
we  would  turn  to  the  creation  of  the  world  !  If  the 
revelation  is  one  which  is  complete,  how  much  to  in- 
terest, to  fascinate,  and  absorb  !  I  say  nothing  of  the 
vast  periods  of  time  needed  to  possess  even  the  keenest 
minds  with  but  a  portion  of  the  details  of  such  a  stu- 
pendous work  ;  but  I  would  notice  the  profound  depths 
to  which  the  observer  would  be  thus  led,  and  the  awful 
mysteries  on  which  he  would  gaze  face  to  face.  How 
laudable  the  desire,  we  might  then  at  the  first  glance 
say,  to  be  possessed  of  a  revelation  giving  such  a  his- 
tory at  large  ! 

Yet  what  is  really  given  us  is  only  this :  "  In  the 
beginning  God  created  the  heaven  and  the  earth.  And 
the  earth  was  without  form  and  void ;  and  darkness  was 
on  the  face  of  the  deep.  And  the  Spirit  of  God  moved 
on  the  face  of  the  waters.  And  God  said.  Let  there  be 
light,  and  there  was  light."  And  then  follows  in  greater 
detail  a  narrative  of  the  creative  work,  grouping  it  in 
six  distinct  days  or  eras,  closing  as  follows  :  "  And  God 
saw  every  thing  that  He  had  made,  and  behold,  it  was 
very  good."  The  whole  history  is  comprised  in  a 
chapter  occupying  not  more  than  a  single  ordinary  page. 


4  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

"  But  is  this  all  ?  "  —  so  the  speculative  inquirer  may 
be  supposed  to  ask.  "  In  fact  you  tell  me  little  more 
than  that  there  is  a  God,  and  that  heaven  and  earth  are 
made  by  Him.  Each  word  of  your  narrative  opens  a 
new  depth  infinitely  profound ;  and  my  speculative  ig- 
norance is  increased,  not  diminished,  by  what  you  tell. 
What,  for  instance,  were  the  counsels  of  God,  when  this 
mighty  work  was  achieved.  What  were  his  agents  ? 
Was  it  by  the  slower  processes  of  chemical  and  me- 
chanical action  that  He  worked,  or  by  the  application 
of  intelligent  force  ?  Was  God  in  solitude  before  this  ? 
Did  He  live  in  space  without  matter  ?  And  if  so,  how, 
as  a  spirit,  can  matter  be  acted  on  by  Him  ? 

"And  then,  again,  as  to  the  word  '  beginning.'  When 
was  this  ?  What  existed  before  it  ?  Bet^veen  this  be- 
gifini7ig  and  the  events  your  history  narrates,  how  much 
time  elapsed  ?  Was  it  a  myriad  of  years,  during  which 
the  earth  seethed  with  multitudinous  changes  ;  or  was  it 
but  a  moment  ?  And  so  as  to  the  term  day  that  follows. 
'  One  day  with  the  Lord  is  as  a  thousand  years  ; '  so 
the  same  book  afterwards  tells  us  ;  and  in  the  Hebrew 
tongue  this  word  day,  besides  its  ordinary  signification 
of  t^venty-four  hours,  implies  any  distinct  epoch,  deter- 
minate or  indeterminate.     Which  do  you  mean  here  ? 

"And  so  as  to  the  word  heavens.  What  does  this 
mean?  Are  these  heavens  infinite?  Are  they  com- 
posed of  planets  inhabited  like  our  own  ?  On  this  point 
your  revelation  is  silent :  it  utters  no  speech." 

But  "  God,"  says  the  patriarch,  "  discovereth  deep 
things  out  of  darkness,"  and  it  is  for  us  reverentially  to 
inquire  what  are  the  lessons  which  the  silence  of 
Scripture  on  this  point  imparts.  And  I  think  they  may 
be  summed  up  as  follows  :  — 


THE  CREATION  OF  THE  WORLD.  5 

And  first,  a  detailed  scientific  exposition  of  the 
earth's  history  would  have  been  a  great  impediment  in 
the  way  of  a  reception  of  revelation.  Men  are  impa- 
tient of  whatever  contradicts  their  senses ;  and  are  by 
no  means  disposed  to  welcome  any  system  in  which 
such  contradictions  are  contained.  A  French  traveler 
tells  us  of  an  Indian  tribe  to  whom  one  of  their  own 
number  sought  to  explain  the  wonders  he  had  seen  on  a 
late  visit  to  the  great  cities  of  the  white  men.  He  ro- 
manced a  good  deal  on  the  subject  of  magic,  to  which 
he  ascribed  much  that  he  had  seen  ;  and  this  they  very 
readily  accepted  as  truth.  After  a  while,  however,  he 
described  a  balloon,  as  a  canoe  that  sailed  on  the  clouds  ; 
but  this  they  at  once  rejected,  declaring  that  so  great  an 
impostor  as  was  the  narrator  of  such  a  story  did  not  de- 
serve to  live.  And  such  has  been  very  much  the  history 
of  society  in  reference  to  any  great  discoveries  which 
contradicted  the  superficial  view  the  senses  gave.  Men 
would  believe  in  witches  and  ghosts;  but  they  would 
not  tolerate  the  truths  that  Albertus  Magnus,  and  Roger 
Bacon,  and  Galileo,  proclaimed.  "  The  story  is  absurd  : 
it  tells  us  that  the  earth  moves  round  the  sun  :  it  tell*- 
us,  therefore,  what  we  know  is  untrue,  and  it  thus  assails 
doctrines  which  lie  at  the  foundation  of  the  public  faith ; 
its  propagators  must  be  put  down."  So  were  the  first 
proclaimers  of  the  true  theory  of  the  heavens  treated ; 
and  if  the  Mosaic  narrative  had  broken  its  silence  to 
give  a  correct  exposition  of  astronomy,  it  is  difficult  to 
understand,  supposing  the  present  providential  arrange- 
ment of  gradual  scientific  development  to  have  obtained, 
how  that  narrative  could  have  commended  itself  to  the 
popular  faith.  As  it  is,  with  all  the  powerful  external 
and  internal  evidence   by   which   the    Bible   has  been 


6  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

vouched,  men  have  been  reluctant  to  receive  it ;  and  the 
slightest  supposed  discrepancies  have  been  seized  on  as 
pretexts  for  its  rejection.  But  how  would  it  have  been 
if  its  whole  terminology,  if  not  its  dogmatic  utterances, 
were  in  the  teeth  of  what  men  thought  they  saw  with 
the  bodily  eye.  A  premature  revelation  of  science 
would  not  be  likely  to  be  accepted  as  a  revelation  of 
religious  truth. 

Nor,  secondly,  would  the  consequences  be  less  peril- 
ous if  men  should  at  once  accept  such  a  revelation  of 
science.  For,  observe,  that  if  an  objection  holds  good 
to  the  reservation  of  truth  on  one  point,  it  holds  good 
to  a  reservation  of  truth  on  all  others  ;  and  hence,  a 
Bible,  to  be  accepted  as  inspired,  must  contain  an  abso- 
lute, complete,  perfect  exhibition  of  universal  knowledge, 
squaring,  not  with  what  we  know  now,  but  with  what  we 
would  know  if  our  powers  were  infinitely  extended,  and 
our  perceptions  infinitely  acute.  Now  how  incompatible 
this  would  be  with  that  gradual  progress  of  the  race  in 
scientific  attainment  which  Providence  has  been  pleased 
to  ordain  !  The  question  that  thus  arises,  is,  therefore, 
not  between  the  Bible  and  science,  but  between  the  pro- 
gressive development  of  scientific  truth,  which  now  ex- 
ists, and  a  system  in  which  all  truth  is  presented  at 
the  outset,  in  full  detail,  to  the  eye.  I  do  not  presume 
to  contrast  these  systems  ;  for  the  first  is  that  which  na- 
ture as  well  as  revelation  traces  directly  to  God  ;  but  I 
do  say,  that  there  are  one  or  two  obvious  reasons  why 
we  must  consider  the  course  thus  established  by  Provi- 
dence as  that  which  is  most  conducive  to  our  interests 
as  creatures  under  probation  for  a  higher  and  a  better 
world.  "  If  God  should  open  the  question,"  so  sub- 
stantially spoke  Leibnitz,  one  of  the  most  devout  as 


THE  CREATION  OF  THE  WORLD.  7 

well  as  profound  of  philosophers,  "  and  should  be 
pleased  to  offer  me  on  the  one  side  absolute  scientific 
truth,  and  on  the  other,  the  search  after  such  truth,  in 
all  humility  I  would  say,  let  it  be  the  search  after  truth, 
as  that  which  belongeth  to  Thy  creature,  O  Lord."  For 
who  could  see  God  face  to  face  and  live  ?  Who  without 
struggling  can  ascend  the  heavenly  heights?  Can 
knowledge  ever  be  obtained  without  long  endeavor ; 
and  is  complete  knowledge  compatible  with  this  our 
creature  life  and  probationary  condition,  and  limited 
days  ?  And  even  supposing  such  a  complete  and  uni- 
versal revelation  to  be  obtained,  how  would  the  stimu- 
lus to  patient  experiment,  to  laborious  study,  to  eager 
intellectual  effort,  at  once  depart !  If  the  delights  and 
the  invigorations  of  seeking  belong  even  to  celestial 
spheres,  how  eminently  do  they  belong  to  our  own ! 
How  emphatically,  then,  is  this  very  silence  of  God,  the 
voice  that  calls  forth  the  laborer  to  his  work,  and  cheers 
student  and  philosopher  on  as  each  seeks  to  enter  some 
new  circle  of  action  or  thought  ?  And  how  does  this 
silence  whisper  to  us  one  truth  more,  and  that  the  pro- 
foundest  of  all  —  our  own  littleness  before  God  !  The 
highest  reach  of  science  is  to  show  us  our  own  igno- 
rance ;  our  greatest  strength  serves  best  to  illustrate  our 
helplessness  in  the  Divine  hand.  So  learn  we  to  adore, 
to  revere,  to  obey.^ 

1  "  The  mysteries  of  Nature  with  regard  to  the  z&5mce.s  of  things,  and, 
indeed,  to  a  great  multitude  of  subtle  operations,  are  kept  in  a  kind  of 
sacred  reserve  and  elude  the  utmost  efforts  of  philosophy  to  surprise  them 
and  bring  them  to  light.  "While  Science  goes  on  from  step  to  step  in  the 
march  of  her  discoveries,  it  seems  as  if  her  grandest  result  was  her  con- 
viction how  much  remains  undiscovered;  and  while  nations  in  a  ruder 
state  of  science  have  been  ready  to  repose  on  their  ignorance  and  error, 
the  most  enlightened  of  men  have  always  been  the  first  to  receive  and 


8  THE   SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

And  then,  thirdly,  such  a  revelation  would  but 
imperfectly  reach  those  wants  to  which  a  revelation  is 
peculiarly  addressed.  "  To  the  poor  the  gospel  is 
preached ; "  such  was  the  crowning  proof  given  by  our 
blessed  Lord  that  His  was  truly  the  revelation  of  God. 
You  may  take  either  the  extreme  of  ignorance,  or  the  ex- 
treme of  cultivation,  and  you  will  find  that  this  poverty 
of  spirit  is  a  necessity  to  those  who  would  approach 
their  God.  Here,  for  instance,  is  a  negro  slave,  in  the 
old  days  of  slavery,  listening  to  the  preacher's  voice,  or 
spelling  out,  it  may  be,  in  his  Bible,  the  divine  message 
it  contains.  What  form  of  communication  could  better 
meet  his  wants  than  that  which  marks  the  sacred  text  ? 
There  he  finds  history  and  biography ;  all  involving 
events  and  characters  he  can  conceive,  and  couched  in 
language  which  sounds  like  hearth-talk  to  his  untutored 
ear.  And  then  there  is  the  mystical  teaching  of  redemp- 
tion, which  at  once  meets  with  a  verification  in  the 
voices  of  his  own  soul,  — 

"  I  the  chief  of  sinners  am, 
But  Jesus  died  for  me." 

So  he  cries,  from  the  depth  of  his  heart ;  but  does  the 
most  profound  philosopher  speak  otherwise,  when  he 
awakens  to  the  truth  of  spiritual  life  ?  A  Bible  that 
would  be  a  scientific  text-book  would  be  no  Bible  for 
the  poor  in  spirit,  whether  they  take  rank  among  the 
multitudes  who  are  ignorant  of  this  world's  knowledge, 

acknowledge  the  remaining  obscurity  which  hung  around  them,  just  as 
in  the  night,  the  farther  a  light  extends  the  wider  the  surrounding 
sphere  of  darkness  appears."  —  Robert  Hall,  Sermon  on  the  Glory  of 
God,  &c. 

"  Qui  nescit  ignorare,  ignorat  scire."  So  quotes  Sir  W.  Hamilton,  who 
thus  paraphrases  the  proverb :  "  The  highest  reach  of  human  science  is 
the  scientific  recognition  of  human  ignorance." 


THE    CREATION    OF    THE    WORLD.  9 

or  the  few  who  are  versed  in  it.  From  all  such  the  ap- 
peal is  :  "I  seek  other  things ;  I  rise  higher  ;  I  must 
learn  those  truths  which  concern  my  Saviour  and  my 
soul." 

And  then,  lastly,  revelation,  by  its  silence  on  these 
questions  of  natural  science,  shows  that  it  is  to  the  soul's 
condition  and  destiny  alone  that  God  points  us,  as  the 
supreme  object  of  thought.  Let  us  suppose  that  when 
the  entrance  into  a  mine  has  been  choked,  a  miner,  of 
superior  intelligence,  pours  the  light  of  a  dark  lantern 
solely  upon  the  spot  where  he  sees  a  path  of  escape  can 
be  hewn  out.  "That  is  the  point;  scatter  not  your 
strength :  work  thereJ^  Somewhat  of  this  character, 
though  of  an  infinitely  higher  degree,  is  the  light  poured 
by  revelation  on  the  way  of  life.  "  It  is  not  elsewhere 
that  your  soul  is  to  be  turned  ;  revelation  condescends 
to  this  one  theme  ;  thither  all  its  rays  converge  ;  on 
this  topic  all  its  light  is  poured  ;  how  fallen  man  can  be 
raised  and  saved."  There  is  an  awful  prominence  given, 
therefore,  to  this  topic,  by  the  silence  of  God.  All  else 
is  shrouded  in  darkness ;  here  alone  is  light  given  to  the 
soul.  Study  this  book :  it  contains  all  that  is  neces- 
sary to  your  spiritual  life.  "  Thy  word  is  a  lamp  unto 
my  feet,  and  a  light  unto  my  path."  It  is  a  light  which 
not  merely  points  out  the  path  of  life,  but  distinguishes 
that  path  from  the  darkness  in  which  God  is  not  to  be 
found. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   ORIGIN    OF    EVIL. 

IF  a  religion  should  be  constructed  by  men,  for  hu- 
man effect,  one  of  the  points  on  which  it  would  be 
most  likely  to  seek  to  satisfy  curiosity  would  be  the  ori- 
gin of  sin.  To  no  topic  have  men's  eyes  been  so 
eagerly  turned.  To  the  natural  mind,  none  is  so  insol- 
uble. Supposing  no  revelation  to  exist,  in  what  mazes 
of  contradiction  do  we  find  ourselves  here  involved.  I 
cannot  look  into  my  own  heart ;  I  cannot  look  at  the 
conduct  of  others  ;  I  cannot  look  at  the  history  of  the 
world,  without  this  cry :  "  Here  is  sin  ;  whence  came 
it  ?  "  And  I  turn  to  the  Bible  for  a  solution,  and  find 
only  this  :  "  God  created  man  in  His  own  image,  and 
blessed  him,  and  gave  him  dominion  over  the  earth  in 
which  he  was  placed.  But  there  were  limits  within  which 
man's  liberty  was  restrained,  and  the  physical  penalty  of 
breaking  these  limits  was  future  death.  But  there  was 
a  still  greater  penalty,  and  that  was  the  curse  of  sin. 
And  man  broke  these  limits,  and  disobeyed  the  Divine 
command,  and  received  the  penalties,  —  physical  death 
and  sinfulness  of  soul.  To  this  he  was  tempted  by  an 
evil  being,  who,  as  a  serpent,  visited  the  garden  where 
man  dwelt."  Such  is  the  substance  of  the  narrative  of 
the  fall  of  man,  and  beyond  this,  revelation  speaks  not. 
"  But  you  do  not  reach  the  mystery  into  which  we  so 


THE    ORIGIN    OF    EVIL.  II 

much  desire  to  penetrate  ;  "  so  we  may  hear  the  ob- 
jector say.  "  You  tell  us  something  about  one  of  evil's 
cofiquestSj  but  nothing  about  its  cause.  Whence  came 
it?  We  have  had  speculations  enough  on  this  point 
from  inquirers,  but  nothing  that  carries  with  it  any 
proof.  One  supposes  that  evil  is  coexistent  with  good. 
Another  supposes  that  evil  must  always  exist  where 
there  is  unshackled  liberty  of  choice.  Another  inti- 
mates that  evil  is  the  result  of  God's  decree.  Certainly 
tsvo  things  we  must  postulate  :  one  is  that  evil  actually 
exists  ;  the  other  that  God  is  all-holy,  all-wise,  and  all- 
good.  How  can  these  be  reconciled  ?  What  clew  does 
your  revelation  afford  ?  " 

"  Put  off  thy  shoes  from  off  thy  feet,  for  the  place 
whereon  thou  standest  is  holy  ground."  God,  for  our 
own  benefit  and  His  glory,  —  to  discipline  us,  to  vindi- 
cate His  own  majesty, —  is  pleased,  over  this  mystery  of 
the  origin  of  evil,  to  drop  an  impenetrable  veil.  "  Ver- 
ily Thou  art  a  God  that  hidest  Thyself,  O  God  of  Israel, 
the  Saviour."  And  where  He  is  pleased  thus  to  dwell 
in  silence,  there  He  places  the  cherubim  with  the  flam- 
ing sword. 

Nature  cannot  penetrate  where  His  secrets  thus  lie 
hid.  Nature  takes  you  to  an  endless  series  of  cause 
above  cause,  or  effect  after  effect,  but  neither  above  nor 
below  is  God  to  be  found.  Her  ladder  rests  below  on 
earth,  but  does  not  extend  upwards  to  those  heavenly 
tents  where  dwells  the  great  First  Cause.  She  says 
this  effect  was  produced  by  this  cause,  and  this  cause 
was  produced  by  another  cause  ;  and  so  from  cause  to 
cause,  until  she  turns  faintingly  back,  and  declares, 
"  Here  is  the  veil ;  further  I  cannot  penetrate  ;  the  se- 


12  THE   SILENCE   OF   SCRIPTURE. 

cret  things  belong  to  the  Lord  our  God."  And  so,  also, 
is  she  speechless  when  she  seeks  to  trace  the  cause  of 
the  evil  by  which  the  world  is  racked  and  stained. 

"  Thou  makest  thine  appeal  to  me: 
I  bring  to  life,  I  bring  to  death ; 
The  spirit  does  but  mean  the  breath,  — 
I  know  no  more." 

We  may  kneel,  it  is  true, 

"  Upon  the  great  world's  altar-stairs 

That  slope  through  darkness  up  to  God,"  — 

But  out  of  the  darkness  Nature  has  no  power  to  lead. 

If  the  Bible  were  closed ;  if  the  only  Divine  book 
open  to  us  were  the  book  of  Nature,  with  what  still 
greater  awfulness  and  emphasis  would  this  same  si- 
lence speak.  "  God  has  reserved  this  question  ;  He 
does  not  choose  that  its  mystery  should  be  penetrated 
by  the  children  of  men.  Evil  stands  as  much  truncated 
in  nature  as  it  does  in  the  inspired  text :  here  is  the 
base  —  here  is  sin  —  but  the  head,  the  original  devis- 
ing source,  is  removed  from  your  view.  Every  act  of 
folly  or  crime  reproduces  the  sin  in  the  garden  ;  every 
deed  of  blood,  the  violence  of  Cain.  There  is  the  fall, 
and  the  heart  bears  witness  to  the  tempter."  This  Na- 
ture shows  us,  but  she  shows  us  no  more.  This  the  re- 
vealed text  shows  us,  but  it  shows  us  no  more.  If  there 
is  an  edict  in  natural  religion  that  is  distinct  and  unmis- 
takable, it  is  this,  "  This  subject  is  sealed."  If  there  be 
an  attitude  in  which  Nature  most  vividly  exhibits  God, 
it  is  in  affixing  these  solemn  seals.  "  He  is  a  God  of 
secrets,"  —  so  she  whispers  to  us,  —  "  He  is  a  God  that 
concealeth  ; "  "  no  searching  can  find  Him  out ;  "  "  stand 
back,  and  know  that  He  is  God,"     "  Verily,  Thou  art  a 


THE    ORIGIN    OF    EVIL.  I3 

God  that  hidest  Thyself,  O  God  of  Israel,  the  Saviour." 
God  of  Israel,  exhibiting  Thyself  in  the  history  of  Thy 
ancient  people  ;  God  the  Saviour,  exhibiting  Thyself  in 
Thy  incarnation  for  the  salvation  of  humanity  ;  but  in 
Thy  essence,  and  in  respect  to  Thine  own  mysteries,  hid- 
ing Thyself  from  the  vision  of  men.  Nature  thus  tells 
us  that  the  entrance  to  these  mysteries  is  sealed  ;  and 
Revelation  but  repeats  what  Nature  proclaims.  To  ob- 
ject to  this  reserve  is  to  object  to  the  system  which 
per\'ades  not  merely  the  Bible  but  the  world. 

And  yet,  as  this  reserve  is  God's  own  utterance  both 
in  act  and  in  book,  like  all  His  other  utterances,  it  has 
meanings  on  which  it  well  becomes  us  to  ponder.  Of 
these  meanings  I  shall  for  a  few  moments  dwell  on  two. 

I.  First,  then,  observe  the  narrowness  of  the  limits 
in  which  our  powers  of  religious  investigation  are  con- 
fined. There  have  been  cases  in  which  the  secrets  of 
great  mechanical  discoveries  have  been  so  scrupulously 
preserved,  that  for  a  while  the  most  curious  eye  was 
baffled  in  its  attempts  to  penetrate  the  chambers  where 
the  process  of  manufacture  was  carried  on.  High  walls 
concealed  the  inclosure  ;  sworn  sentinels  stood  guard 
at  its  gates  ;  and  yet,  even  with  such  checks,  these 
walls  might  be  scaled,  or  these  sentinels  corrupted  ;  or 
at  last  a  chance  guess  would  discover  the  key  to  the 
secret  which  mere  care  sought  so  jealously  to  preserve. 
But  it  is  otherwise  with  this  great  mystery  of  evil,  and 
its  relations  to  the  All-Holy  God.  Around  this,  the 
council  chamber,  as  it  were,  of  divinity,  a  wall  is  built 
which  no  human  vision  can  pierce.  We  are  thus 
shut  out  from  any  accurate  speculative  theology  ;  for 
the  door  is  closed  to  that  region  without  a  knowledge 
of   which    no   accurate   speculative    theology   can    be 


14  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

framed.  "What  we  are  concerned  with  is  the  faith  of 
the  heart  and  the  obedience  of  the  life  ;  it  is  not  spec- 
ulation on  the  unrevealed,  but  submission  to  the  re- 
vealed. Though  "  we  may  know,"  says  Bishop  Butler, 
"  somewhat  concerning  the  designs  of  Providence  in  the 
government  of  the  world,  enough  to  enforce  upon  us 
religion  and  the  practice  of  virtue  ;  yet,  since  the  mon- 
archy of  the  universe  is  a  dominion  unlimited  in  extent 
and  everlasting  in  duration,  the  general  system  of  it 
must  necessarily  be  quite  beyond  our  comprehension. 
And  since  there  appears  such  a  subordination  and  ref- 
erence of  the  several  parts  to  each  other,  as  to  consti- 
tute it  properly  one  administration  or  government,  we 
cannot  have  a  thorough  knowledge  of  any  part,  without 
knowledge  of  the  whole."  "  Knowledge,"  proceeds 
this  great  thinker,  "  is  not  our  proper  happiness.  It  is 
evident  that  there  is  another  mark  set  up  for  us  to  aim 
at ;  another  end  which  the  most  knowing  may  fail  of, 
and  the  most  ignorant  arrive  at :  —  *  The  secret  things 
belong  unto  the  Lord  our  God :  but  those  thifigs  which 
are  revealed  belo7ig  tmto  us,  a?id  to  our  children  forever, 
that  we  may  do  all  the  words  of  this  law.^  Which  re- 
flection of  Moses,  put  in  general  terms,  is,  that  the  only 
knowledge  which  is  of  any  avail  to  us,  is  that  which 
teaches  us  our  dnty,  or  assists  us  in  the  discharge  of 
it."  Reason  is  given  us  to  judge  of  the  evidences  of 
religion,  which  are  addressed  to  men ;  and  to  apply  the 
precepts  of  religion,  which  concern  practical  life  ;  and 
not  to  penetrate  the  mysteries  of  religion,  which  belong 
to  God. 

II.  Such  being  the  lesson  we  learn  from  God's  si- 
lence as  to  the  origin  of  evil,  let  us  conclude  by  inquir- 
ing how  what  has  been  revealed  as  to  this   mystery 


THE   ORIGIN    OF    EVIL.  15 

bears  on  our  practical  life.  What  we  thus  receive  may 
be  summed  up  under  the  following  heads. 

I  St.  We  are  assailed  not  only  by  an  inner  tendency 
to  evil,  inherent  in  our  corrupt  wills,  but  by  a  powerful 
spiritual  adversary,  who  seeks  the  ruin  of  our  souls. 
He  is  the  chief  of  the  fallen  angels,  cast  down  from 
heaven  for  his  pride  and  revolt  against  the  Most  High, 
and  now  he  ranges  the  earth,  with  his  subordinates, 
tempting  men  to  sin.  So  he  tempted  our  first  parents  ; 
so  he  tempted  David,  Judas,  and  Ananias  ;  and  so,  with 
awful  skill  and  power,  he  tempts  us  all. 

2d.  And  yet,  in  the  second  place,  powerful  and  in- 
sidious as  Satan  thus  is,  he  is  under  restraint,  and  can- 
not destroy  us  if  we  resist  him  in  the  proffered  strength 
of  the  Lord.  "  Simon,  Simon,  behold  Satan  hath  de- 
sired to  have  thee,  that  he  may  sift  thee  as  wheat ;  but 
I  have  prayed  for  thee  that  thy  faith  fail  not."  And  if 
we  fa//,  it  is  because  we  yield.  There  is  an  allegory, 
traceable,  I  believe,  to  Luther,  which  portrays  to  us  a 
missionary  meeting  at  which  the  Prince  of  Wickedness 
himself  presided,  to  hear  the  reports  of  his  emissaries, 
returning  from  their  errands  of  evil  about  the  earth. 
"  I  dogged  a  caravan  of  Christians  crossing  the  desert," 
cried  one,  "  and  I  hounded  the  wild  beasts  on  them, 
and  they  were  torn  to  pieces,  and  their  bones  lie  whiten- 
ing on  the  sand."  "  But  what  of  this,"  answered  Satan  ; 
"for  their  souls  were  all  saved."  "And  I  just  now 
spied  on  the  waves  a  boat  full  of  Christians,"  reported 
another,  "  and  I  flung  a  storm  down  on  them,  and 
they  foundered,  and  there  lie  //leir  bodies  fresh  under 
the  sea."  "  But  what  of  t^at,"  cried  Satan  ;  "for  their 
souls  were  saved."  "And  I,"  said  a  third,  the  subtlest 
of  them  all,  "was  twenty  years  tempting  a  righteous 


l6  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

man  to  commit  a  sin,  and  I  succeeded,  and  he  con- 
sented, and  I  left  him  asleep  in  his  sin."  "  Then  Sa- 
tan," so  follows  the  allegory,  "  cried,  '  Well  done  ! '  and 
the  night  stars  of  hell  shouted  for  joy."  But  it  is  only 
over  the  consenting  Christian  that  the  tempter  prevails. 
"  Satan  hath  desired  to  have  thee,  but  /  have  prayed 
for  thee  that  ^/ly  faith  fail  not."  Christ's  intercession, 
the  believer's  faith,  —  these  form  a  sure  armor  against 
attack  from  our  soul's  foe.  We  must  trust ;  we  must 
work  in  Christ's  vineyard,  and  in  our  own  partic- 
ular secular  labor,  and  through  His  mighty  interces- 
sion we  are  safe.  And  if  so,  temptation  builds  us  up 
rather  than  destroys.  It  is  like  the  torrent  that  pours 
down  an  embankment  of  sand  around  the  piers  of  a 
bridge  firmly  planted  in  the  river  bed.  It  may  rage, 
but  it  only  adds  strength  to  that  which  it  assails. 
Temptation  may  thus  become,  as  St.  Augustine  tells, 
the  ladder  by  which  heaven  itself  is  reached.  Meeting 
and  surmounting  each  temptation  as  it  in  turn  is  pre- 
sented, first  the  coarse,  and  then  the  more  refined,  the 
soul  at  last  reaches  the  heavenly  heights.  And  thus  it 
is,  on  the  one  hand,  that  there  is  no  temptation  so  great 
as  not  to  be  tempted  at  all,  no  danger  so  great  as  un- 
consciousness of  danger  ;  so  on  the  other  hand,  con- 
sciousness of  temptation  is  the  soul's  safeguard,  and 
conquest  of  temptation  the  soul's  ennoblement. 

3d.  And  then  the  last  truth  is,  that  there  is  a  final 
day  coming  when  temptation  will  cease,  and  when  Sa- 
tan and  his  angels  will  be  imprisoned  finally  and  for- 
ever. "  I  beheld  Satan  as  lightning  fall  from  heaven," 
says  the  Lord,  speaking  prophetically  of  this  great  day. 
"  Then  shall  that  Wicked  be  revealed,"  writes  St.  Paul, 
speaking  of  the  final  great  struggle,  "  whom  the  Lord 
shall  consume  with  the  spirit  of  His  mouth,  and  shall 


THE   ORIGIN    OF    EVIL.  17 

destroy  with  the  brightness  of  His  coming."^  And 
hear  of  the  glory  of  the  regenerated  world,  under  this 
the  dominion  of  the  Lord  Christ :  "  And  he  carried 
me  away  in  the  spirit  to  a  great  and  high  mountain, 
and  showed  me  that  great  city,  the  holy  Jerusalem, 
descending  out  of  heaven  from  God,  having  the  glory  of 
God :  and  her  light  was  like  unto  a  stone  most  precious, 
even  like  a  jasper  stone,  clear  as  crystal.  .  . .  And  I  saw 
no  temple  therein :  for  the  Lord  God  Almighty  and 
the  Lamb  are  the  temple  of  it.  And  the  city  hath  no 
need  of  the  sun,  neither  of  the  moon,  to  shine  in  it :  for 
the  glory  of  God  did  lighten  it,  and  the  Lamb  is  the 
light  thereof."  There  enters  neither  sin,  nor  suffering, 
nor  death ;  and  there  the  redeemed  and  glorified  soul 
will  grow  forever  in  the  blessed  knowledge  and  service 
of  the  Lord,  unpolluted  by  sin,  and  unassailed  by  temp- 
tation. What,  then,  is  revealed  to  us  of  the  power  of  sin, 
teaches  us  to  watch,  to  work,  to  trust,  to  hope,  and  to 
conquer.  The  foe  that  contends  with  us  is  great,  but 
greater  is  Christ  our  King,  and  in  these  things  we  shall 
be  more  than  conquerors,  through  Him  who  redeemed 
us,  and  died  for  us  on  the  tree. 

"  For  though  my  sinfulness  is  great, 

Atoning  grace  is  greater; 
And  though  all  Hell  should  lie  in  wait, 

Supreme  is  my  Creator ; 
And  He  my  Strength  and  Fortress  is, 
And  when  most  helpless,  most  I  'm  His, 

My  Strength  and  my  Redeemer!  " 

"  Verily,  Thou  art  a  God  that  hidest  Thyself,  O  God 
of  Israel,  the   Saviour."      Thou   hidest  whatever  it   is 
not  needful  for  us  to  know  ;  Thou  revealest  whatever 
is  required  to  lead  us  into  the  path  of  life. 
1  2  Thess.  ii.  8. 


CHAPTER  III. 

DIVINATION. 

IN  a  man-made  religion,  Divination  is  a  chief  feat- 
ure. It  may  be  Divination  by  means  of  certain 
prescribed  mechanisms  ;  or  it  may  be  Divination  through 
a  particular  priesthood ;  but  from  such  a  system,  Divi- 
nation of  some  sort  seems  inseparable.  It  may  be 
that,  under  the  grossest  form  of  superstition,  witches 
mutter  their  incantations  over  the  ashes,  or  sing  out  their 
prophecies  in  wild  orgies  round  the  caldron  in  which  the 
mystic  decoction  seethes.  Or  it  may  be  that  from  mar- 
ble statue,  or  from  consecrated  grove,  proceed  the  pro- 
phetic utterances,  charming  the  refined  by  their  classic 
elegance,  and  overawing  the  superstitious  by  their  mys- 
tic terrors.  And  before  these  oracles  men  of  all  classes 
have  knelt.  It  is  not  merely  the  peasant,  stretching 
out  his  hand  in  dull  credulity  for  the  gypsy's  edict; 
for  men  of  all  stages  of  enlightenment  have  besought 
the  soothsayer  to  open  to  them  the  secrets  of  their 
future.  It  may  be  that  the  imposture  was  so  trans- 
parent that  in  any  other  subject-matter  it  would  have 
been  scornfully  disdained.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  vortex 
of  Divination  is  approached  by  rapids,  which,  when 
once  they  are  entered,  it  seems  impossible  to  escape. 
What,  for  instance,  is  more  shallow  than  Spiritualism  ? 
What  has  been  more  ignominiously  exposed  ?     And  yet 


DIVINATION.  19 

Strong  men  are  sometimes  swept  into  its  depths  by  the 
very  force  of  this  yearning  to  penetrate  the  secrets  of  the 
Invisible  World.  "  Have  you  not  lost  a  beloved  friend  ?  " 
—  so  is  one  bleeding  under  a  recent  bereavement  ad- 
dressed. "  Would  you  not  hear  from  that  friend  ? " 
And  the  grieving  and  yearning  heart  is  thus  drawn  into 
a  current  from  which  few  return  with  minds  perfectly 
uncrazed.  Or,  with  some  momentous  future  ahead,  and 
some  question  of  great  doubt  besetting  the  present,  the 
same  yearning  to  penetrate  the  veil  becomes  equally 
irresistible  even  to  men  of  the  serenest  and  most  intel- 
lectual mould.  Marcus  Aurelius,  the  most  philosophic 
of  emperors,  sought  consolation  from  an  oracle  of  some 
of  whose  deceptions  he  was  necessarily  aware.  Wallen- 
stein,  one  of  the  most  statesmanlike  of  generals,  took  as 
his  guide  an  astrologer  whom  he  could  not  but  despise  ; 
and  on  the  eve  of  Pultowa  made  the  question  as  to  who 
was  the  trustiest  of  his  friends  depend  upon  the  verdict 
of  an  omen.^  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury,  one  of  the 
keenest  of  skeptics,  hung  his  religious  creed  on  the  un- 
expected occurrence  of  a  meteoric  shower.  The  pre- 
tended ability  to  predict  the  unforeseen  and  determine 
the  future,  has  enabled  the  most  presumptuous  of  impo- 
sitions to  number  among  their  votaries  the  intelligent  as 
well  as  the  ignorant ;  the  sage  as  well  as  the  child.  And 
if  a  religion  was  devised  by  man  for  the  purpose  of  win- 
ning human  support,  such  a  claim  would  almost  surely  be 
advanced.  It  was  so  with  the  mythologies  of  old  times ; 
it  is  so  with  the  fraudulent  superstitions  of  our  own. 
And  yet,  immense  as  is  the  power  which  such  a  pre- 

1  "  Gib  mir  ein  Zeichen,  Schicksal !    Der  soil's  se>Ti 
Der  an  dem  nachsten  Morgen  mir  zuerst 
Entgegen  kommt  mit  einem  Liebeszeichen." 

Wallenstein's  Tod,  II.  3. 


20  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

tension  gives,  it  is  one  which  Christianity,  solitary  in 
this  respect  among  all  religions  appealing  to  Divine  sanc- 
tion, most  expressly  disclaims.  It  avails  itself  of  no  such 
curiosity  j  it  appeals  to  no  such  superstitious  yearnings, 
tremendous  as  is  the  power  to  be  thus  invoked.  It  gives 
no  mechanism  by  which  the  future  may  be  forecast.  It 
appoints  no  oracular  priesthood.  And  not  only  this, 
but  it  pronounces  the  future  destinies  of  the  individual 
to  be  impenetrable  to  the  human  eye.  "  I  returned,  and 
saw  that  the  race  is  not  to  the  swift,  nor  the  battle  to 
the  strong,  neither  yet  bread  to  the  wise,  nor  yet  riches 
to  men  of  understanding,  nor  yet  favor  to  men  of  skill ; 
but  time  and  chance  happeneth  to  them  all.  For  man 
also  knoweth  not  his  time."  "  We  know  not  what  shall 
be  on  the  morrow."  And  again  :  "  There  shall  be  two 
in  the  field  :  the  one  shall  be  taken  and  the  other  left. 
Watch,  therefore,  for  ye  know  not  what  hour  your  Lord 
doth  come."  "Go  to,  now,"  so  speaks  St.  James,  "ye 
who  say.  To-day  or  to-morrow  we  will  go  into  such  a  city, 
and  continue  there  a  year ;  whereas  ye  know  not  what 
shall  be  on  the  morrow."  Strange  utterances  these,  at 
a  period  when  every  religion  had  its  oracles  ;  and  when, 
as  if  on  the  eve  of  some  great  convulsion,  voices  of  Di- 
vination, mixed  with  the  cries  of  demoniac  possession, 
seemed  to  issue  from  the  whole  surface  of  the  moral 
world.^  And  stranger  still  the  silence  which  Chris- 
tianity, when  all  other  religious  systems  provided  oracle 
and  shrine,  preserved  on  this  whole  question  of  the  in- 

1  Archbishop  Trench,  in  his  Treatise  on  Miracles,  (p.  162,)  says:  — 
"  If  there  was  anything  that  marked  the  period  of  the  Lord's  coming  in 
the  flesh,  it  was  the  wreck  and  confusion  of  man's  spiritual  life.  The 
whole  period  was  the  hour  and  power  of  darkness ;  of  a  darkness  which 
then,  immediately  before  the  dawn  of  a  new  day,  was  the  thickest." 


DIVINATION.  2  1 

dividual  future,  standing  with  finger  on  the  lip,  as  if  to 
say,  "  As  to  this  I  have  no  voice,  neither  shalt  thou.'* 
In  view  of  the  prevalence  of  Divination  in  those  days  ; 
in  view  of  the  immense  power  it  exercised  over  the  sen- 
sibilities and  fears  of  men  ;  in  view  of  the  fact  that  in 
the  popular  mind,  oracle  and  shrine  were  indispensable 
to  religious  faith,^  —  the  silence  of  the  Apostles  on  this 
point,  —  their  stern  dissociation  of  themselves  and  their 

1  Juvenal,  in  his  sixth  satire,  speaks  at  large  of  divination  as  an  essen- 
tial ftature  of  all  religious  rites.  After  specifj-ing  several  cases,  the  fol- 
lowing summary  is  given :  — 

"  The  curse  is  universal :  high  and  low 
Are  mad  alike  the  future  hour  to  know. 
The  rich  consult  a  Babylonian  seer, 
Skilled  in  the  mysteries  of  either  sphere  ; 
Or  a  gray -headed  priest,  hired  by  the  state, 
To  watch  the  lightning,  and  to  expiate. 
The  middle  sort,  a  quack,  at  whose  command 
They  lift  the  forehead,  and  make  bare  the  hand. 
The  poor  apply  to  humbler  cheats,  still  found 
Beside  the  circus  wall,  or  city  mound; 
While  she,  whose  neck  no  golden  trinket  bears, 
To  the  dry  ditch,  or  dolphin's  tower,  repairs. 
And  anxiously  inquires  which  she  shall  choose. 
The  tapster,  or  old  clothes-man  ?    Which  refuse  ?  " 

Gifford's  Translation,  lines  83&-60. 

The  reference  to  Judaism  is  much  weakened  by  Mr.  Giflford.  I  give 
the  original :  — 

"  Cum  dedit  ille  locum,  cophino  fenoque  relicto 
Arcanam  Judaea  tremens  mendicat  in  aurem , 
Interpres  legiun  Solymarum  et  magna  sacerdos 
Arboris  ac  summi  fida  intemuntia  coeli  —  " 
It  will  be  seen  by  this  that  the  claim  to  divination  was  prominently 
put  forth  by  the  Jews  at  Rome. 

No  impostor  would  have  neglected  so  powerful  an  element  of  fascina- 
tion ;  but  by  the  Apostles  it  was  not  only  disclaimed  but  denounced.  In 
St.  Paul's  case,  one  of  the  most  violent  persecutions  he  encountered  was 
from  his  having  silenced  an  oracle  of  Divination  out  of  which  the 
owners  obtained  "  much  gain."  —  Acts  xvi.  16. 


22  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

work  from  any  such  power,  is  accountable  in  no  other 
way  than  by  the  direction  of  the  Most  High.  The 
utterances  which  human  wisdom  could  not  have  averted, 
must  have  been  silenced  by  Divine. 

But  it  is  with  the  lessons  of  this,  the  silencing  of 
Divination,  that  we  have  to  do  ;  and  the  first  is,  that  we 
find  in  Christianity  alone  a  true  revelation  of  the  real 
relations  of  man  to  God,  so  far  as  the  disposal  of  the 
future  is  concerned.  In  His  hand  are  contained  results, 
leaving  duties  alone  to  us.  The  oars  of  Providence  are 
muffled.  We  know  not  our  hour  ;  and  hence  we  are  to 
labor  as  if  we  were  to  live  forever,  and  trust  as  if  we 
were  to  die  to-night.  Our  eyes  are  blinded  to  the  future 
wherever  we  have  freedom  of  action ;  they  are  open 
to  the  future  only  when  that  freedom  of  action  is 
refused.  We  can  foresee  an  eclipse  a  thousand  years 
hence,  but  we  cannot  avert  it ;  we  could  avert  a  con- 
flagration by  which  our  own  home  may  be  burned 
to-night,  but  we  cannot  foresee  it.  On  the  one  side, 
consciousness  of  mighty  powers  of  perception  in  things 
not  concerning  self ;  on  the  other  side,  the  necessity  of 
trust,  faith,  and  resignation  in  all  that  concerns  self  j  — 
these  are  the  spiritual  truths  we  here  learn. 

Nor  is  the  subject  without  moral  lessons  of  almost 
equal  moment.  There  could  be  no  courage  in  the  en- 
durance of  difficulties  ;  no  energy  in  surmounting  them ; 
no  wise  care  of  emergencies  ;  none  of  that  sagacious 
industry  which  provides  against  each  of  the  several 
chances  of  loss  ;  none  of  that  heroism  which  derives  its 
dignity  and  manliness  from  its  battle  against  opposition 
which  is  often  as  unexpected  as  it  is  defiant.  The 
highest  type  of  moral  greatness,  in  fact,  is  built  up  and 
developed  by  the  very  endurance  and  comprehensive- 


THE    FUTURE  :     WHY   VEILED.  23 

ness  which  this  struggle  against  the  unforeseen  imparts. 
It  has  been  said  that  Washington  and  William  of  Or- 
ange became  great  generals  by  defeats  ;  to  these  they 
owed  the  majesty  which  disappointment  could  not 
shock  ;  the  training  of  mind  and  nerve  which  neglected 
nothing,  and  presumed  on  nothing ;  the  habit  of  asso- 
ciating the  triumph  of  right  with  the  far  future,  and  not 
with  the  present's  verdict ;  and  the  largeness  of  intellect 
which  could  plan  for  success  comprehensively,  and  when 
success  at  last  came,  receive  it  with  tranquil  and  un- 
dated brow.  And  so  it  is  with  us  in  the  battles  of  life. 
Whatever  greatness  may  belong  to  our  moral  powers 
will  be  largely  traceable  to  the  difficulties  which  this,  the 
future's  darkness,  heaps  in  our  path. 

But  it  is  mainly  with  our  affections  that  this  question 
concerns  itself;  and  living  as  we  do  in  this  world  of 
wrongs  and  griefs,  it  is  hard  to  see  how  our  affections 
could  grow,  were  not  the  future  mercifully  hid.  Ob- 
serve how  it  would  be  with  our  wrongs.  It  would  be  a 
weary  and  unbounteous  Vv^orld  in  which  men  should  al- 
ways foresee  the  alienations  and  ingratitudes  of  the  days 
to  come  !  It  would  be  a  world  in  which  there  would 
be  little  of  that  unselfish  trust ;  that  hoping  against 
hope  ;  that  readiness  to  try  once  more  and  forgive  ; 
that  long  patience  with  the  erring,  which  are  among  the 
most  beautiful  features  in  this  our  fallen  state.  All 
would  be  either  horror  at  the  certain  crime,  or  selfish 
partnership  in  the  assured  success. 

And  so  with  the  griefs  of  life.  I  do  not  know  how 
we  could  bear  these  if  we  saw  them  ahead.  Most  men 
who  have  reached  mature  years  have  known  what  it  is 
to  meet  with  some  stunning  blow  on  the  hearth  and 
heart ;  what  would  it  have  been  if  this  blow  had  been 


24  THE    SILENCE   OF    SCRIPTURE. 

foreseen  ?  It  may  have  been  in  some  matter  of  busi- 
ness economy,  when,  without  any  moral  wrong,  the 
whole  fabric  of  prosperit}^  may  be  suddenly  swept  away. 
It  may  be  such  a  case  as  that  of  the  late  Mr.  Wilder, 
whose  history  has  recently  been  so  effectively  told  ;  and 
in  which  almost  a  lifetime  of  honorable  business  suc- 
cess, and  of  noble  hospitalit}^,  and  of  large  beneficence, 
was  suddenly,  and  sharply,  and  finally  terminated  by  a 
bankruptcy  as  undeserved  as  it  was  irremediable.  But 
how  would  that  noble  hospitality  have  become  a  grief 
and  a  shame,  and  that  liberal  hand  have  been  para- 
lyzed, had  the  ruin  of  final  years  been  foreseen  ?  Mac- 
beth, as  soon  as  the  event  on  which  depended  his  pre- 
dicted overthrow  ceased  to  be  improbable,  —  when  the 
woods  approached  the  castle,  and  he  not  born  of  woman 
appeared,  —  cried  out  in  despair  that  his  resolution  was 
palled,  and  his  manhood  gone.  And  so  others  less 
guilty  than  Macbeth  would  speak,  if  the  disasters  of  the 
future  were  to  each  of  us  foretold. 

And  so  with  bereavements.  There  may  be  some  who 
can  recall  some  sharp,  unwarned  affliction  which  to 
have  foreseen  would  have  been  to  the  heart  an  agony 
beyond  its  capacity  to  endure.  It  was  the  stunning 
qualities  that  belonged  to  the  blow's  suddenness  that 
made  it  tolerable ;  it  was  the  ether  of  unexpectedness 
which  enabled  the  sufierer  to  sustain  a  pain  which 
otherwise  would  have  been  beyond  his  strength.  And 
it  is  one  of  God's  tenderest  providences,  that  often  this 
oblivion  to  the  coming  shock  continues,  to  those  to 
whom  it  would  be  greatest,  when  with  those  less  near 
the  eye  is  opened,  so  that  the  heart  that  would  be  other- 
wise crushed,  is  able  cheerfully  to  persevere  in  its  min- 
istry of  love.     Hoping  with  hope  and  against  hope,  such 


CHRIST    LIFTING    THE    VEIL.  25 

is  the  philosophy  written  on  this  veil  by  which  the 
future  is  shut  off.  I  do  not  know  how  we  could  bear  it 
were  it  otherwise.  I  do  not  know  where  would  be  the 
brightness  left  to  life  were  this  veil  withdrawn.  To 
those  who  ever  followed  a  child  to  the  grave, — what 
years  of  hope,  of  delight,  of  the  sweetest  pleasure  that 
earth  affords,  would  have  been  lost ;  with  what  leaden 
skies  would  those  years  have  been  overhung,  could  that 
death  have  been  foreseen !  How  would  it  have  been 
possible  to  have  looked  on  that  childish  face  without 
the  bitterest  of  pangs!  And  the  future — how  with 
that  ?  Who  is  there  that  may  not  in  a  few  months  be 
summoned  to  that  sternest  and  most  awful  of  scenes, 
—  the  parting  with  our  most  loved  ?  To  whom  may 
not  soon  be  assigned  the  solitary  house  where  no 
longer  is  heard  the  voice  at  once  most  familiar  and 
most  cherished  ?  And  what  a  stupor  would  fall  over 
us  were  this  revealed  ;  how  would  each  step  forward 
be  only  a  step  into  deeper  gloom ;  how  would  the 
fountain  of  affection  pour  forth  not  love,  but  bitterness, 
and  horror,  and  despair.  It  is  in  mercy  that  God  con- 
ceals as  well  as  reveals.  It  is  to  make  this  life  a  true 
period  of  probation,  in  which  grow  not  only  the  noblest 
virtues,  but  the  most  refining  affections  of  heart,  that  the 
future  is  thus  covered  by  a  veil. 

Yet  there  was  One  before  whose  eye  this  veil  was 
lifted  ;  One  who,  in  assuming  humanity's  griefs,  took 
not  humanity's  blindness,  but  united  grief's  dread  an- 
ticipation with  its  present  pang.  From  the  outset  of 
His  public  ministry  the  desertion  and  horror  of  its  close 
stood  out  fully  before  His  Divine  eye.  "  I  have  a  bap 
tism,"  so  He  spoke  almost  at  the  outset,  "  to  be  baptized 
with ;  and  how  am  I  straitened  till  it  be  accomplished." 


26  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

Even  in  the  glory  of  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration,  when, 
in  communion  with  His  celestial  visitants,  "  they  spake," 
so  it  is  recorded,  "  of  the  decease  which  He  was  to 
accomplish  at  Jerusalem."  Then,  as  the  event  drew 
nigh,  He  went  forth  to  meet  it  with  a  full  knowledge 
of  its  approach.  "  Behold,  we  go  up  to  Jerusalem,  and 
the  Son  of  man  shall  be  betrayed  unto  the  Chief  Priests 
and  Scribes,  and  they  shall  condemn  Him  to  death,  and 
shall  deliver  Him  to  the  Gentiles,  to  mock,  and  to 
scourge,  and  to  crucify  Him."  And  when  the  last  sharp 
blow  was  about  to  fall,  "  Jesus,  knowing  all  things  that 
were  to  come  upon  Him,  went  forth."  He  stood  alone, 
therefore,  in  bearing  the  full  burden  of  human  affliction, 
for  He  bore  its  anticipation  as  well  as  its  shock.  It 
brings  the  loveliness  and  grandeur  of  His  character 
more  fully  before  us  when  we  recollect  that  thus  fore- 
seeing He  shrank  not  back,  neither  turned  with  averted 
eye  from  those  whom  He  knew  would  desert  and  betray 
Him  ;  would  scoff  Him,  and  nail  Him  to  the  tree.  He 
drew  not  back,  but  calmly  went  forward  to  the  cross. 
He  reproached  not,  but  blessed,  and  healed,  and 
pleaded,  yet  not  for  Himself  but  for  them.  There  is 
something  in  this  combination  of  tenderness,  of  pre- 
science, of  power,  which  in  itself  proclaims  the  Divine, 
and  leads  us  to  kneel  and  cry,  "  All  hail  unto  Thee,  O 
Christ,  despised  and  rejected  of  men,  bearing  for  us  the 
foreseen  cross."  And  as  we  thus  gaze  and  worship, 
other  features  in  the  Master  appear.  He  was  chastised 
for  our  iniquities  ;  the  burden  of  our  sins  was  upon 
Him  ;  and  this  He  bore  that  we  might  be  saved.  It 
was  the  fuller  cup  that  He  took,  leaving  the  lesser  to  us  ; 
He  sheltered  us  from  a  storm  which  was  greater  than 
we  could  bear,  sustaining  its  full  shock.     The  doctrine 


CHRIST    THE    AVERTER.  27 

of  His  substituted  sacrifice  for  us,  therefore,  ripens  to 
its  fulness  as  we  view  His  life  and  passion  in  this  light : 
it  was  a  finished  work,  a  full  mantle  ;  a  robe  whose 
protection  from  the  judgments  we  deserve  is  complete. 
Tremble  not,  then,  O  believer,  who  takest  refuge  in  Him, 
in  a  loving  and  living  faith,  for  the  salvation  of  the  Lord 
is  sure.  And  in  all  your  sufferings  and  griefs,  and  be- 
reavements and  fears,  lean  on  Him  in  perfect  trust, 
knowing  that  more  than  this  He  bore  for  the  love  of  you, 
and  that  there  is  no  pang  you  can  bear  which  He  cannot 
Himself  feel,  as  your  just  and  merciful  High-priest. 
But  what  will  it  be  to  be  left  to  bear  alone,  unsheltered, 
and  unsoothed,  the  full  storms  of  those  eternal  pains 
where  the  despair  of  a  certain  future  of  wretchedness 
is  joined  to  the  remorse  for  an  abused  past ! 


CHAPTER   IV. 

LITURGY. 

LORD,  teach  us  to  pray,  as  John  also  taught  his 
disciples  ; "  and  in  answer  to  this  petition  our 
blessed  Lord  set  forth  a  prayer,  which,  precious  and 
obligatory  as  it  is,  must  constitute,  from  its  very  brevity, 
but  a  small  fraction  of  the  petitions  offered  on  occasions 
of  stated  public  worship.  And  the  omission  is  most 
remarkable.  History  gives  no  other  example  of  the  in- 
stitution of  a  religious  communion  whose  founders  did 
not  include  in  its  articles  a  directory  for  public  worship. 
And  yet  so  far  from  such  being  the  case  with  Christian- 
ity, our  Lord,  in  His  reply  to  His  disciples,  leaves  the 
whole  mode  and  material  of  public  worship  undeter- 
mined ;  and  His  Apostles  exercised  with  equal  scru- 
pulousness the  same  reserv^e.  There  is  no  form  of 
prayer  set  forth  in  the  New  Testament  except  the 
Lord's  Prayer  ;  and  while  we  have  frequent  mention 
of  prayers  being  offered,  of  the  breaking  of  bread,  and 
of  baptism,  the  only  two  prayers  of  the  Apostles  which 
are  recorded  in  words,  had  reference  to  such  extraordi- 
nary occasions  as  make  them  unsuitable  for  the  usual 
purposes  of  worship.^  To  what,  then,  is  this  remark- 
able and  evidently  designed  omission  of  a  settled  form 
1  Acts  L  24;  iv.  24. 


LITURGY  :    WHY    NOT    DIVINELY    PRESCRIBED.  29 

either  for  worship  or  the  administration  of  the  sacra- 
ments to  be  traced  ? 

And  first,  clearly  not  to  disapprobatmi  of  a  liturgical 
form.  If  such  disapprobation,  on  so  important  a  point, 
were  to  be  expressed,  it  would  be  expressed  distinctly ; 
and  besides  this,  the  silence  strikes  deeper  :  it  reaches 
to  the  order  of  all  worship,  of  whatever  type.  And 
if  the  test  of  presumption  is  to  be  resorted  to,  the  pre- 
sumptions all  are  that  liturgical  worship  was  at  least 
not  discountenanced  by  our  Lord.  He  certainly  wor- 
shiped according  to  the  liturgy  in  use  in  the  Jewish 
Church.  He  showed  that  there  was  no  principle 
against  liturgical  worship,  by  setting  forth  at  least  one 
form  of  prayer,  —  a  prayer  which,  as  in  the  plural 
number,  implies  that  its  first  scope  is  that  of  joint, 
as  distinguished  from  individual,  use.  He  attached 
peculiar  efficacy  to  prayers  in  which  His  people  "  shall 
agree  together  touching  something  they  shall  ask  in 
His  name  ; "  and  this  agreement  requires  some  sort 
of  joint  prior  preparation.  And  again,  liturgies  sprang 
up  in  the  Primitive  Church  at  a  period  so  early  as  to 
raise  an  almost  irresistible  presumption  that  liturgical 
worship  of  some  kind  was  common  under  the  directions 
of  the  Apostles  themselves.  And  then,  how  essential, 
we  may  well  argue,  must  have  been  a  grave,  settled, 
common  worship,  to  communities  so  uninstructed  and 
so  heterogeneous,  as  those  which  made  up  the  early 
Church.  If  now  a  liturgy  is  one  of  the  most  effective 
instruments  of  Christian  education ;  if  it  brings  up  the 
young,  by  their  holiest  memories,  in  the  true  faith ;  if  it 
is  the  only  adequate  method  of  introducing  to  us  ki  due 
order  the  Christian  Year  in  its  spiritual  fulness  and  pow- 
er ;  if  now,  when  prepared  with  devout  comprehensive- 


30  THE   SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

ness,  it  is  a  more  effective  agent  of  spirituality  than  is 
an  extemporaneous  system,  in  which  all  depends  on  the 
gifts,  the  culture,  the  doctrine,  or  the  tone  of  the  minister 
for  the  time  being  ;  if  now  one  man's  liberty  in  public 
prayer  is  often  every  body  else's  enthrallment,  and  the 
only  true  liberty  is  a  common  form  agreed  to  by  all  ;  — 
if  thus,  even  with  ourselves,  orthodoxy,  spirituality,  and 
liberty  unite  so  largely  in  recommending  some  sort  of 
a  liturgy,  how  eminently  must  this  have  been  the  case 
in  the  early  Church,  where  the  people  were  compara- 
tively untutored,  and  where  on  public  worship,  religious 
instruction  so  largely  depended.  In  view,  then,  of  the 
individual  usages  of  the  Lord  and  his  Apostles,  in  view 
of  the  practice  of  the  early  Church,  in  view  of  the  wants 
of  that  Church,  we  have  no  right  to  connect  the  omis- 
sion, in  the  New  Testament,  of  liturgical  presumption 
with  any  thing  like  a  disapprobation  of  a  liturgical  form. 
What,  then,  does  so  remarkable  an  omission  teach  ? 

And  first,  we  may  find  an  answer  in  the  truth  that 
prayer  is  not  man's  mechanical  repetition  of  God's  pre- 
scripts^ but  man's  voluntary  response  to  GocTs  revealed 
word.  Formularies  of  aJl  kinds  become  mechanical 
just  in  proportion  as  they  are  arbitrarily  imposed.  How 
dully,  for  instance,  do  the  forms  of  our  common-law 
courts  sound  to  the  officers  compelled  by  law  to  repeat 
them,  and  how  vivid  and  momentous  they  are  to  those 
not  under  such  constraint,  but  who  are  individually  con- 
cerned in  their  application.  How  sharply  does  the  ar- 
raignment of  a  prisoner,  and  the  swearing  of  a  jury,  cut 
into  the  consciousness  of  the  prisoner  himself;  yet  how 
smoothly  do  the  same  forms  float  over  the  attention  of 
crier  and  clerk.  I  do  not  say  that  this  tells  against  a 
liturgy ;  because  a  liturgy,  in  a  Protestant  communion, 


liturgy:  why  not  divinely  prescribed.       31 

is  taken  not  as  divinely  prescribed,  but  as  the  choice  of 
the  worshiper  himself.  But  I  do  say  that  this  passive- 
ness  on  the  worshiper's  part  is  apt  to  rise  just  in  propor- 
tion as  a  liturgy  is  supposed  to  be  verbally  prescribed 
and  limited  by  the  express  direction  of  God.  Hence  the 
tendency  in  the  Romish  Church,  which  claims  this  au- 
thority, to  turn  its  prayers  into  formulas  used  largely  in 
an  unknown  tongue,  and  designated  by  their  first  words, 
and  packed  up,  as  it  were,  and  labelled  in  this  way,  and 
attached  to  beads,  recited  as  if  by  title.  A  missionary 
who  penetrated  into  Tartary  a  few  years  since,  mentions 
a  habit  he  there  observed  in  the  native  priests,  of  attach- 
ing particular  prayers  to  the  spokes  of  a  wheel,  and 
then,  on  giving  the  latter  a  whirl,  supposing  their  de- 
votions were  properly  offered.  Devout  as  are  many 
metnbers  of  the  Romish  Church,  the  idea  that  their 
prayers  are  made  up  by  an  infallible  authority,  and 
that  they  are  complete  in  themselves  by  God's  own  fiat, 
tends  very  often  to  the  notion  that  with  them  human 
participation  has  nothing  to  do,  and  that  they  are  to 
be  offered  up,  as  far  as  possible,  unalloyed  by  human 
choice  or  human  thought.  It  is  a  vicarious  worship ; 
if  the  priest  does  not  intercede  for  the  worshiper,  the 
prayer  does.  And  the  silence  of  our  Lord  on  this  point, 
while  it  strengthens  the  reasons  for  a  liturgy  in  public 
worship,  by  enhancing  the  responsibility  of  the  exercises 
in  which  we  thus  engage,  unites  with  the  express  utter- 
ances of  Scripture  in  warning  us  how  thoroughly  we 
must  throw  our  choice,  our  judgment,  our  consciousness, 
our  affections,  into  the  petitions  we  offer  to  His  throne. 
"  God  is  a  Spirit,  and  they  that  worship  Him  must  wor- 
ship Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth."  "  Use  not  vain  rep- 
etitions, as  the  heathen  do."     "  Pray  without   ceasing." 


32  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

"  Pray  with  the  understanding."  "  Men  ought  always  to 
pray  and  not  to  faint."  And  then  the  Lord's  silence  on 
this  point  seems  to  add  :  "  Listening  and  answering  are 
mine  ;  praying,  yours.  See  then  that  prayer  indeed  be 
yours.  Choose  the  words  ;  choose  them  gravely  and 
ably ;  choose  them  as  individuals  in  personal  prayer ; 
choose  them,  it  may  be,  as  a  Church,  for  congregational 
prayer ;  but  choose  them  as  yours ;  and  with  all  your 
powers  of  attention  and  supplication,  approach  the 
throne." 

And  then,  a  second  reason  for  this  omission  may  be 
found  in  the  universality  of  the  Church.  It  would  have 
been  easy  to  have  framed  a  single  liturgy  which  would 
have  satisfied  the  wants  of  the  first  disciples  ;  but  very 
soon,  as  the  Church  expanded,  a  system  so  narrow 
would  have  been  a  great  impediment  to  growth.  For,  no- 
tice the  varied  elements  which  the  Church  was  destined 
to  comprehend.  Almost  at  the  outset  are  gathered  to- 
gether "  Parthians,  and  Medes,  and  Elamites,  and  the 
dwellers  in  Mesopotamia,  and  in  Judaea,  and  Cappa- 
docia,  in  Pontus,  and  Asia ;  Phrygia,  and  Pamphylia,  in 
Egypt,  and  in  the  parts  of  Libya  about  Cyrene,  and 
strangers  of  Rome,  Jews  and  Proselytes,  Cretes  and 
Arabians,"  —  nations  embracing  almost  every  peculiar- 
ity of  language  and  of  blood.  And  then,  when  the 
Church  began  to  take  organic  shape,  how  varied  were 
the  phases  of  civilization  which  she  was  to  meet  and 
absorb.  On  this  very  question  of  worship,  remember 
how  the  Latin  intellect  tended  to  comprehensive  gen- 
eralization ;  the  Greek,  to  refined  individualization  ; 
the  Oriental,  to  mystic  contemplation.  And  then,  even 
in  our  own  time,  after  so  many  centuries  of  religious 
and  commercial  assimilation,  how  prominently  do  these 


LITURGY  :    WHY    NOT    DIVINELY    PRESCRIBED.        33 

contrasts  of  race  start  out,  not  merely  between  the  in- 
habitants of  distinct  countries,  but  between  those  of  dis- 
tinct races  living  on  the  same  soil.  An  eminent  clergy- 
man of  the  North  of  Ireland  tells  us  that,  during  the 
Crimean  war,  he  had  occasion  to  see  successively  a  com- 
pany of  Irish  soldiers,  a  company  of  English  soldiers, 
and  a  company  of  Scottish  soldiers,  parting  with  their 
friends.  "  The  parting  of  the  English  was  undemon- 
strative but  hearty  and  deep  ;  it  was  an  attempted  cheer 
ending  in  gushing  tears,  which  they  neither  encouraged 
or  discouraged.  The  Scottish  women  waved  their  hands, 
and  had  then  to  turn  away  to  bur}'  and  hide  their  faces 
and  the  rolling  tears.  The  Irish  let  it  all  out  in  unre- 
strained bursts,  and  loud  and  affecting  wails."  ^  Such 
are  the  variations  of  national  temperament  in  the  ex- 
pression of  emotion ;  and  in  individual  temperament 
the  variations,  if  more  subtile  and  numerous,  would  be 
.scarcely  less  marked.  "  There  are  so  many  kinds  of 
voices  in  the  world,"  so  speaks  St.  Paul,  "  and  none  of 
them  without  signification."  ^  The  gospel  dispensation 
does  not  force  these  voices  into  one  key  and  tone,  but 
draws  each  to  itself,  according  as  each  is  best  able  to 
utter  its  prayer  and  praise. 

So  it  is  that  our  blessed  Lord  left  no  liturgical  form 
except  one  prayer,  which  is  in  the  nature  rather  of  a  com 
mon  base  of  worship  than  a  universal  structure  ;  and 
so  it  is  that  the  Primitive  Church,  at  the  earliest  period 
to  which  history  takes  us,  possessed  a  series  of  litur- 
gies, each  more  or  less  free,  and  each  adapted  to  the 
use  of  specific  provinces  or  districts.     There  were  diver- 

1  The  Ulster  Revival^  etc.,  a  pamphlet  by  the  Rev.  Jas.  McCosh,  LL.  D. 
1859. 

2  1  Cor.  xiv.  10. 

8 


34  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

sities  of  order ;  there  were  varieties  of  expression ; 
there  were  openings  for  non-liturgical  prayer ;  there 
was  a  liberty  which  would  have  been  inconsistent  with 
a  divinely  prescribed  liturg}',  and  which  was  at  the 
same  time  essential  to  a  Catholic  Church  which  was 
to  embrace  all  nations  and  tongues.-^  For  men  of 
all  varieties  of  temperament  were  to  join  in  that  wor- 
ship :  men,  some  of  whom  would  find  their  most  nat- 
ural expression  in  symbolism  ;  men,  also,  of  passionate 
temperament  and  coarse  temper,  to  whom  the  rude  and 

1  The  Chmstian  Remembrancer,  a  paper  very  far  opposed  to  liturgical 
liberalism,  thus  fairly  states  the  case  with  the  early  Church :  — 

"  It  does  not  seem  as  if,  at  first,  any  thing  more  than  the  simple  outlines 
of  a  ritual  were  given,  fixing  the  few  essential  parts,  and  leaving  the 
rest  free.  The  very  diversities  of  order  in  the  Liturgies  is  a  sign  of  this, 
still  more  the  variations  of  expression,  and,  so  far  as  Ave  can  judge  from 
history  and  extant  remains,  those  variations  were  greater  in  the  early  than 
in  the  later  ages.  The  object  of  the  requests,  the  evils  to  be  depre- 
cated, the  persons  for  whom  intercession  should  be  made,  Avere  in  the 
main  fixed ;  beyond  this  it  was  left  to  the  discretion  and  prayerful  spirit 
of  the  Bishop  of  each  church  to  choose  the  expression,  to  enlarge  the 
subjects,  to  extend  and  contrast  the  fulness  of  his  pra^-ers.  Hence  we 
read  in  St.  Justin  Martyr,  that  the  celebrant  praj^ed  and  gave  thanks 
6<TTj  Swafiis  avTw.  If  a  form  were  now  found  which  professed  to  be  a 
fixed,  formal  Liturgy  of  any  church,  or  any  number  of  churches,  in  the 
Ante-Nicene  period,  the  very  fact  of  its  professing  to  be  such  would 
throw  the  strongest  suspicion  on  its  genuineness."  —  London  Christian 
Remembrancer,  INIay,  1854. 

The  Preface  to  our  Common  Prayer-book  recites  the  truth  on  which 
primitive  usage  was  based:  — 

"  It  is  a  most  invaluable  part  of  that  blessed  liberty  Avherewith  Christ 
has  made  us  free,  that  in  His  worship,  different  forms  and  usages  may  be 
without  offence  allowed,  provided  the  substance  of  the  faith  be  kept 
entire  " 

The  Articles  of  the  Church  of  England  speak  to  the  same  effect:  "  It 
is  not  necessary  that  traditions  and  ceremonies  be  in  all  places  one,  or 
utterly  alike:  for  at  all  times  they  have  been  divers,  and  ma}'  be  changed 
according  to  the  diversity  of  countries,  times,  and  men's  manners,  so  that 
nothing  be  ordained  against  God's  Avord."  — Art.  xxxiv. 


LITURGY  :    WHY    NOT    DIVINELY    PRESCRIBED.  35 

vehement  cr)'  for  aid  would  be  the  most  natural  utter- 
ance ;  men  whose  communion  would  be  that  of  adora- 
tion ;  men  of  calmer  nature,  whose  instinct  and  com- 
fort it  would  be  to  place  their  wants,  their  confessions, 
their  thanksgivings,  with  systematic  and  classic  com- 
pleteness before  the  Divine  Throne.  In  that  Church 
was  to  be  subtle  Greek  and  stately  Roman  ;  mystic 
Alexandrian  and  precise  Jew  ;  scholar  and  barbarian, 
bond  and  free  ;  and  in  that  Church  was  each  to  find  in- 
struction and  peace. -^ 

And  we  must  be  equally  flexible  and  comprehensive, 
if  we  would  enlarge  ourselves  as  a  true  branch  of  the 
Catholic  Church  of  Christ.  For  Christ  speaks  not  to 
one  line  of  tastes,  but  to  all  ;  not  to  one  line  of  temper- 
ament but  to  all ;  not  exclusively  to  the  contemplative, 
or  the  fervid,  or  the  refined,  or  the  ignorant ;  not  ex- 
clusively to  him  who  receives  the  truth  only  through 
elementar}^  statement,  nor  exclusively  to  him  who  re- 
ceives the  truth  only  through  symbol  and  illustration  ; 
but  comprehensively  to  all,  each  approaching  Him 
through  the  several  avenues  of  expression  which  He 
Himself  has  framed.  "  Thou  that  hearest  prayer, 
unto  thee  shall  all  flesh  come."  "What  God  hath 
cleansed  that   call  not  thou  common."     Dare    not   to 

1  The  Romish  Church  has  understood  this,  varj'ing  her  services  as  she 
does  from  the  gorgeous  ceremonial  to  the  preaching  by  cross  or  station, 
where  the  priest's  passionate  appeal  is  preceded  only  by  a  moment's 
prayer;  and  extending  her  missionary  organizations,  so  that  for  deeds  of 
mercy  she  offers  the  Carmelites,  passing  through  their  rounds  of  mercy  to 
sick  and  starving;  and  for  the  scholastic  work  of  the  Church,  the  Bene- 
dictines; and  for  its  missionary  labors,  the  Paulists  and  Passionists,  unit- 
ing often  the  simplest  machinery  with  the  most  powerful  vernacular 
eloquence.  The  Church  of  Rome  has  sanctioned  many  abuses,  and  has 
been  sadly  false  to  her  sacred  trust,  but  she  has  been  wise  in  this,  —  the  ' 
flexibility  of  the  liturgical  system  she  adopts. 


36  THE   SILENCE   OF   SCRIPTURE. 

close  up  any  of  the  paths  through  which  the  sinner 
approaches  the  Lord ;  but  if  thou  canst,  stand  by  the 
opening  to  each,  and  invite  the  ignorant,  the  careless, 
the  self-deceived,  the  slave  of  sense  and  of  sin  to  enter 
in  ;  invite  each  in  the  tongue  that  he  best  understands, 
to  implore  the  Saviour  of  souls  for  pardon  and  life. 

So  it  is  then  —  and  this  is  the  sum  of  the  teaching 
we  have  just  considered  —  that  Christ  speaks  to  all^ 
and  He  speaks  to  you.  He  speaks  to  all  :  "  Ho, 
every  one  that  thirsteth,  come  ye  to  the  waters  ; "  — 
"  Come  unto  me  all  ye  that  travail  and  are  heavy  laden, 
and  I  will  give  you  rest."  He  speaks  to  all  in  His 
terms ,  —  an  inflexible,  absolute  message  it  is,  sal- 
vation through  the  cross  ;  but  you  must  answer  in 
yours.  You  must  answer,  not  in  another  man's  nature 
but  your  own  \  not  in  form  but  in  spirit ;  in  the  full  sin- 
gle earnestness  of  your  own  heart  must  you  plead  with 
the  God  of  hosts,  and  offer  as  your  own  the  prayers  by 
which  you  approach  His  throne.      Revelation  is  of 

God  ;   PRAYER,   of  MAN. 


CHAPTER    V. 

CREEDS. 

THE  remarks  which  have  been  made  on  the  omis- 
sion in  the  New  Testament  of  any  prescribed 
liturgy  for  public  worship,  apply  in  many  respects  to 
the  absence  of  creeds  and  catechisms.  It  is  in  every 
view  probable  that  some  such  formularies  were  set 
forth,  if  not  by  the  Apostles,  at  least  by  the  evangelists 
and  teachers  whose  labors  they  directed.  Compen- 
diums  of  doctrine,  suitable  for  the  particular  wants  of 
the  times,  —  catechisms  for  the  young,  if  not  for  adults, 
—  are  among  the  first  necessities  of  religious  instruc- 
tion ;  and  in  the  apostolic  age  they  were  at  least  as  much 
needed  as  in  our  own.  The  doctrine  was  then  entirely 
new.  It  was  contained  in  a  large  number  of  books, 
partly  historical,  partly  prophetic,  and  partly  exeget- 
ical,  hortatory,  and  practical ;  but  in  none  of  these  any 
thing  like  systematic  articles  of  faith  were  set  forth. 

The  people  who  comprised  the  Apostolic  Church  were 
most  of  them  ignorant  of  letters  ;  and  even  were  it 
otherwise,  the  want  of  copies  of  the  sacred  record  must 
have  made  it  necessary  for  them  to  depend  very  largely 
upon  oral  instructions.  Such  instructions  would  nat- 
urally have  taken  a  compendious  and  systematic  shape, 
and  in  this  shape  would  have  been  put  on  record,  even 
supposing  that  no  creeds  or  catechisms  were  set  forth  by 
common  consent.     The  omission,  then,  of  such  creeds 


38  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

and  catechisms  from  the  New  Testament,  is  a  very  re- 
markable fact.  It  is  so  unparalleled  in  religious  history ; 
it  is  so  antecedently  improbable  when  we  view  the  nature 
of  the  work  and  the  duties  of  the  inspired  penmen,  that 
we  can  readily  understand  how  one  of  the  most  acute 
of  modern  divines  should  consider  such  an  omission  as 
in  itself  proof  of  the  divine  authorship  of  the  Gospel 
revelation.^  "  An  omission  which  is,  on  all  human  prin- 
ciples, unaccountable,  amounts  to  a  moral  demonstration 
of  the  divine  origin  of  our  religion.  For  that  which 
cannot  have  come  from  Man,  must  have  come  from 
Gody  2 

I.  But  it  is  with  the  teachings  of  this  omission  that 
we  have  now  to  do.  And  those  teachings  may  be  best 
collected  by  considering  the  reasons  on  which  we  may 
reverentially  suppose  such  an  omission  to  be  based. 

These  reasons  we  may  thus  state  :  — 

I  St.  Such  a  compendium  would  supersede  the  books 
of  Scripture  as  they  now  exist.  It  would  act  as  a  statute 
acts  on  the  common  law :  the  histories,  biographies, 
prophecies,  and  exhortations  on  which  the  compendium 
would  be  based  would  cease  to  be  consulted  ;  they  would 
be  absorbed  in  such  compendium,  and  it  alone  could  be 
the  authoritative  guide.  The  consequences  of  this 
would  be  as  follows  : — 

(i.)  Those  processes  of  individual  thought  which  God 
now  makes  the  prerequisite  of  all  conception  of  truth, 
would  be  no  longer  exercised  as  to  that  which  is  the  pro- 
foundest  and  most  important  truth  of  all.  Observe  how 
it  is  in  the  natural  world.  God  has  not  been  pleased  to 
write  a  compendium  of  science  on  the  skies,  or  to  im- 

1  Whately's  Essays^  3d  Series,  p.  119.     London,  1850. 

2  Ibid. 


CREEDS  :    WHY    NOT    DIVINELY    PRESCRIBED.  39 

plant  it  among  the  intuitions  of  the  mind.  On  the  con- 
trary, scientific  truth  is  ascertained  by  induction  and  by 
induction  alone.  Thus  God  neither  engraved  the  chart 
of  the  Gulf  Stream  on  the  waters,  nor  revealed  it  as  a 
scientific  conclusion  to  the  mind  ;  but  He  appointed 
in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  a  reservoir  by  whose  tropical 
fires  the  waters  of  this  wonderful  current  were  to  be 
heated ;  He  opened  a  channel  through  which  it  was 
to  flow  through  the  colder  waves  of  the  Atlantic ;  and 
then,  He  directed  its  final  action  to  the  shores  of  Great 
Britain,  converting  what  would  otherwise  have  been  a 
coast  as  inhospitable  as  that  of  Newfoundland  into  a 
region  in  which  unite  almost  every  constituent  of  com- 
mercial success,  as  well  as  almost  every  climatic  ele- 
ment which  serv^es  to  build  up  a  hardy,  enterprising,  and 
high-hearted  race.  But  it  is  with  the  facilities  lent  to 
navigation  by  the  Gulf  Stream  that  we  have  now  to  do  ; 
and  remember  here  that  the  direction  and  force  of  the 
Gulf  Stream  were  never  compendiously  revealed  by  God, 
but  were  left  to  be  inferred  from  a  vast  field  of  facts, 
widely  scattered,  and  requiring  great  industry  in  their 
collocation  and  great  care  in  their  comparison,  as  well  as 
the  exercise  of  individual  judgment  in  the  conclusion  to 
which  they  led.  God  has  in  fact  ordained  these  proc- 
esses of  labor  and  of  reasoning  as  the  prerequisite  to  all 
conception  of  His  natural  laws  ;  and  we  may  therefore 
presume  that  He  would  make  these  same  processes  the 
prerequisite  to  the  conception  of  the  truths  of  grace.-^ 

1  Since  the  text  was  written,  I  have  met  the  following:  —  "  So  is*the 
outer  world  fixed,  determinate,  palpable  to  the  unerring  senses,  the 
same  now  as  it  was  two  thousand  years  ago,  yet  science  has  been  pro- 
gressive ;  generation  after  generation  has  learned  to  see  more  in  Nature, 
and  to  understand  it  better;  and  there  are  still  measureless  treasures 
of  this  knowledge  reserved  for  generations  yet  unborn.    And  does  not 


40  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

He  has,  in  wonderful  richness  and  variety,  placed  before 
us  the  materials  from  which  these  truths  may  be  drawn. 
Over  these  the  soul  must  itself  ponder ;  and  such  is  the 
plainness  of  the  divine  records,  such  their  wonderful 
variety,  such  the  multitudinous  avenues  of  human  ap- 
prehension to  which  they  in  turn  open,  that  'there  is  no 
devout  student,  no  matter  how  simple  his  understand- 
ing or  how  narrow  his  range  of  extraneous  information, 
but  may  conclude  from  them  that  creed  which  teaches 
trust  in  God ;  redemption  from  sin  by  the  obedience 
and  death  of  Christ ;  and  a  holy  life  as  the  product  of 
a  loving  and  faithful  he  art.  ^ 

the  history  of  the  Church  prove  that  this  is  the  very  course  which  waspre- 
scHbedfor  man,  in  order  that  he  viight  attain  to  a  reasonable,  systematic 
knowledge  of  divine  things^  Here,  too,  truths  which  in  one  age  are  almost 
latent,  or  recognized  singly  and  insulatedly  by  faith,  on  the  authority  of 
a  positive  declaration,  are  brought  out  more  distinctly  by  subsequent 
ages,  and  are  ranged  in  their  mutual  connection,  in  their  positron  as  parts 
of  the  system  of  truth,  and  in  their  relation  to  the  rest  of  our  knowl- 
edge concerning  the  nature  and  destinies  of  man.  Meanwhile  God's 
Word  stands  fast,  even  as  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  and  is  the  mine 
from  which  everv  new  system  is  extracted,  and  the  canon  whereby  it  is 
to  be  tried;  and  as  more  than  fifty  generations  have  drawn  the  nurture 
of  their  hearts  and  minds  from  it,  so  will  generation  after  generation 
to  the  end  of  the  world."  —  Hare,  Mission  of  the  Comforter,  note  G.  p. 
246.  To  this  it  may  be  added  that  this  ripening  in  the  appreciation  of 
Divine  Truth  is  no  more  to  be  compared  to  the  "development "  of  the 
Romish  Church,  than  is  the  truth  uncovered  by  Galileo  to  the  Brah- 
min's fiction  that  the  earth  rests  on  an  elephant.  The  progressive  recep- 
tion of  truth  b}'  the  devout  study  of  God's  Word  by  the  churches,  brings 
out  the  treasure  hid  in  the  field;  the  "  development  "  by  a  corrupt  Church 
substitutes,  in  place  of  this  treasure,  base  coin. 

See,  also,  Goulburn's  Stmly  of  Scripture,  ch.  iii.,  iv. 
1  This  broadness  of  Scripture,  as  a  field  for  the  induction  of  doctrine, 
is  well  traced  in  Burns's  well-known  lines:  — 

The  priest-like  father  reads  the  sacred  page, 

How  Abram  was  the  friend  of  God  on  high, 
Or,  Moses  bade  eternal  warfare  wage 

With  Amalek's  ungracious  progeny  : 


CREEDS  :    WHY    NOT    DIVINELY    PRESCRIBED.  4I 

And  it  is  a  striking  fact,  that  each  successive  writer 
in  the  New  Testament,  instead  of  giving  a  compendium 
of  what  had  been  already  written,  adds  to  the  field  of 
induction  from  which  such  a  compendium  is  to  be  drawn 
by  the  individual  soul.  Thus,  as  has  been  well  said  by 
Bishop  Ellicott,  St.  Matthew  has  written  Annals,  St. 
Mark,  Biography,  St.  Luke,  History,  and  St.  John,  Dra- 
matic Portraiture.  The  Acts  of  the  Apostles  is  an 
independent  book  of  history,  covering  a  new  subject 
matter ;  and  the  Epistles  are  in  the  main  specifically 
adapted,  each  to  meet  a  particular  want,  or  to  touch  a 
particular  audience,  or  to  combat  a  particular  error. 
St.  John,  when  at  Patmos,  might  well  have  been  looked 
upon  as  likely  to  give  a  compendium  of  doctrine,  if 
such  a  compendium  was  within  the  divine  plan ;  but 
instead  of  this,  he  produced  that  wonderful  book  which 
added  to  the  inspired  records  the  mystic  revelation  of 
the  future  Church  and  world.  Here,  then,  the  mate- 
rials for  induction  were  complete  ;  they  embrace  the 
Saviour's  life  and  death,  viewing  them  in  four  independ- 
ent relations  ;  they  embrace  history  of  the  past,  and 
prophecy  of  the  future  ;  they  embrace  the  application  of 

Or  how  the  ro}-al  bard  did  groaning  lie 
Beneath  the  stroke  of  Heaven's  avenging  ire  ; 

Or  Job's  pathetic  plaint  and  wailing  cry  ; 
Or  rapt  Isaiah's  wild,  Feraphic  fire  ; 
Or  other  holy  seers  that  tune  the  sacred  lyre. 

Perhaps  the  Christian  Tolume  is  the  theme. 

How  guiltless  blood  for  guilty  man  was  shed ; 
How  He  who  bore  in  heaven  the  second  name, 

Had  not  on  earth  whereon  to  lay  his  head : 
How  his  first  followers  and  servants  sped 

The  precepts  sage  they  wrote  to  many  a  land  : 
How  he  who  lone  in  Patmos  banished. 

Saw  in  the  sun  a  mighty  angel  stand, 
And  heard  great  Babylon's  doom  pronounced  by  Heaven's  command.'* 


42  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

this  histoi^'  to  the  heart  in  its  varied  phases,  —  an  ap- 
plication not  systematic  and  general,  but  particular  and 
concrete.  And  then  the  command  goes  forth,  "  search." 
Individual  study  is  to  be  invoked.  There  must  be  a 
thoughtful  comparison  of  text  with  text.  The  mind  is 
not  to  receive  the  truth  at  short-hand,  as  by  some  royal 
road  ;  but  what  is  true  of  all  other  truths  is  eminently 
true  of  this.  It  must  be  dug  out  by  labor  as  treasure 
hidden  in  the  field  ;  the  mind  must  ponder  over  it,  and 
must  survey  the  wdiole  field  for  study,  feeling  that  to 
neglect  any  portion  would  be  to  lose  the  meaning  of  the 
whole.  "  Whatsoever  things  were  written  aforetime  were 
written  for  our  learnings  that  we,  through  patience  and 
comfort  of  the  Holy  Scj-iptures^  might  have  hope''  Learn- 
ing and  patience  ;  these  are  the  great  qualities  which 
the  Scriptures  invoke ;  and  comfort  is  the  reward,  — 
comfort  in  the  conquering  of  doubt,  comfort  in  the  won- 
derful light  which  is  kindled  when  text  is  fused  with 
text ;  and  comfort  in  the  precious  meanings  which,  day 
after  day  unfold  themselves,  making  more  and  more 
clear  the  verifications  of  revelation,  and  more  and  more 
precious  the  truths  of  grace.  God  gives  in  scriptures 
the  materials  from  which  man  forms  his  belief ;  —  but 
the  creed,  the  credo,  the  confession,  the  belief, 
is  man's  conclusion  and  response.  And  the  creed  is 
withheld  by  God  in  order  that  it  may  be  heartily  and 
intelligently  given  by  man,  after  patient  study  of  the 
sacred  text.  And  this  patience,  this  constant  study,  this 
struggling  with  and  conquest  of  doubt ;  this  discovery 
day  after  day  of  values  still  more  precious  and  blessed 
in  the  treasure  hid  in  the  field ;  this  long  striving, 
this  quiet  pondering,  this  delightful  appropriation  of 
truth  after  truth,  each  glowing  more  and  more  brightly 


CREEDS  :    WHY    NOT    DIVINELY   PRESCRIBED.  43 

as  it  is  intelligently  sought  and  prayerfully  studied  ;  — 
these  belong  to  the  verifying  of  the  creed  from  the  text 
of  the  Inspired  Word.^ 

(2.)  Should  such  a  compendium  of  divinity  be  in- 
cluded in  the  sacred  records,  it  would  revolutionize  the 
relations  of  man  to  God.  For  such  a  compendium,  by 
the  very  assumption  on  which  it  is  called  for,  must  be 
a  complete  exhibition  of  divine  wisdom,  and  man,  in 
receiving  it,  would  be  resolved  into  an  omniscient  mir- 
ror reflecting  back  an  omniscient  God.  All  choice, 
comparison,  doubt,  probation,  subordination,  and  humil- 
ity, would  be  destroyed. 

(3.)  By  such  a  process  the  reception  of  divine  truths 
would  be  endangered  in  heart  as  well  as  in  intellect 
"  Read,  mark,  learn,  and  inwardly  digest  them  ;  "  such 
is  the  process  by  which  the  Collect  for  the  Second  Sun- 
day in  Advent  describes  the  appropriation  of  Scripture 
to  the  spiritual  comfort  of  the  soul.  It  is  true  that  a 
mere  formula  is  not  of  necessity  incapable  of  this  diges- 
tion, for  in  many  cases  it  is  spiritually  appropriated, 
either  at  first  or  after  the   action  of  time.      But  the 

1  "  Supposing  such  a  summary  of  gospel-truths  had  been  drawn  up, 
and  could  have  been  contrived  with  such  exquisite  skill  as  to  be  sufficient 
and  well  adapted  for  all,  of  every  age  and  country,  what  would  have 
been  the  probable  result?  There  would  have  been  no  room  for  doubt, 
no  call  for  vigilant  attention  in  the  investigation  of  truth,  none  of  that 
effort  of  mind  which  is  now  requisite  in  comparing  one  passage  with  an- 
other, and  collecting  instruction  from  the  scattered,  oblique,  and  inci- 
dental references  to  various  doctrines  in  the  existing  Scriptures  ;  and  in 
consequence,  none  of  the  excitement  of  the  best  feelings,  and  that  im- 
provement of  the  heart,  which  are  the  natural,  and  doubtless  the  designed, 
result  of  an  humble,  diligent,  and  sincere  study  of  the  Christian  Script- 
ures." —  "  In  fact  all  study,  properly  so  called,  of  the  rest  of  Scripture, 
all  lively  interest  in  its  perusal,  would  have  been  nearly  superseded." 
Whately's  Cautions,  No.  xxv.  p.  444.  See  also  Bishop  Hinds'  Inquiry  into 
the  Proofs  of  Inspiration^  p.  79. 


44  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

example  of  the  Church  of  Rome  shows  us  that  these 
formulas  may  remain  in  the  heart  as  unassimilated  and 
unappropriated  as  are  those  frozen  animals  which  an 
iceberg  retains  lifeless  but  unchanged  for  centuries.  If, 
as  has  been  already  seen,  induction  is  the  process  by 
which  the  intellect  most  readily  receives  truth,  so  this 
process  of  assimilation,  by  which  chapter  after  chapter, 
text  after  text,  are  gradually  received  and  appropriated, 
is  that  by  which  truth  is  most  readily  received  by  the 
heart.  "  Holy  Scripture  thus  progressively  unfolding 
what  it  contains,"  says  Archbishop  Trench,  "  might  be 
likened  fitly  to  some  magnificent  landscape  on  which  the 
sun  is  gradually  rising,  and  ever  as  it  rises  is  bringing 
out  one  headland  into  light  and  prominence,  and  then 
another  ;  anon  kindling  the  glor)'-smitten  summit  of 
some  far  mountain,  and  presently  lighting  up  the  recesses 
of  some  near  valley  which  had  hitherto  abided  in  gloom  ; 
and  so  traveling  on  till  nothing  remains  in  shadow,  no 
nook  or  comer  hid  from  the  light  and  heat  of  it,  but  the 
whole  prospect  stands  out  in  the  clearness  and  splendor 
of  the  brightest  noon."  ^  There  is  a  spiritual  blessing, 
then,  in  this,  the  reserve  of  Scripture,  which  no  revela- 
tion of  scientific  theology  could  impart.  For  it  is  the 
base  of  the  Christian's  growth  in  grace  and  in  the 
knowledge  of  the  Lord. 

2d.  Such  a  compendium  would  imperil  church  univer- 
salization.  Judaism  was  meant  to  be  local,  and  tempo- 
rary, and  eclectic ;  and  the  religion  prescribed  for  the 
Jews  was  marked  by  symbols  and  a  ritual  adapted  to 
their  specific  character  and  era.  Christianity  is  meant 
to  be  universal,  and  permanent,  and  catholic,  and  it 
possesses  no  creed  or  ritual  divinely  prescribed.  It  be- 
1  Trench,  Huhean  Lecture  on  the  Development  of  Scripture. 


CREEDS  :    WHY    NOT    DIVINELY    PRESCRIBED.  45 

longs  to  no  type  or  nationality  of  men  ;  it  is  neither  Jew 
nor  Greek,  Barbarian  or  Scythian,  bond  or  free ;  but  it 
is  every  thing  to  each,  and  each  is  equally  embraced 
within  its  bounds. 

So  it  was  with  its  Master,  who,  unabsorbed  by  any 
nationality,  uncontrolled  by  any  form  of  human  tem- 
perament, has  condescended  to  bless  and  sanctify  each 
of  them  to  Himself.  He  does  not  destroy  these  pecul- 
iarities of  national  and  individual  character ;  He  does 
not  exact  an  average  and  uniform  type  ;  but  visiting 
them  as  they  are,  He  condescends  to  draw  each  of  them 
to  Himself.  It  is  with  Him  as  with  the  portrait  whose 
eyes  meet  and  respond  to  the  eyes  of  all  turned  to  it ; 
He  looking  into  the  souls  of  all  who  gaze  on  Him, 
whoever  they  may  be,  and  wherever  and  whenever  they 
may  live.  As  in  heaven,  one  star  differeth  from 
another  star  in  glory,  so  on  earth,  men  are  infinitely 
varied  in  the  modes  in  which  they  receive  God's  teach- 
ings ;  but  Christ  comes  as  a  Saviour  to  all,  each  finding 
the  centre  of  life  in  Him,  He  planting  one  common, 
supreme  truth  in  each.  Qualified  and  controlled  by  no 
form  of  religious  temperament,  He  qualifies  and  draws 
all  to  himself;  He,  the  one  sole  being  who  ever  trod 
the  earth,  who  teaches,  not  partial  truth,  but  the  whole ; 
who  is  not  national,  but  universal  j  not  eclectic,  but 
Catholic ;  not  of  one  time,  but  of  all  times ;  not  one, 
but  all ;  not  the  creature  of  side-lights  and  influences, 
but  the  one  God-man,  unmoulded  by  any  one  age, 
country,  or  world,  yet  occupying  all. 

Christ,  then,  being  the  one  common  centre,  the  in- 
spired records  are  the  channels  through  which  His 
gface  streams  forth  on  men.  In  early  Christian  art,  as 
we  are  reminded  by  Archbishop  Trench,  this  diverging 


46  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

power  of  Scripture  was  illustrated  by  an  often-repeated 
symbol,  "wherein  from  a  single  cross-surmounted  hill 
four  streams  are  seen  welling  out ;  and  these  streams 
were  likened  to  "  the  four  rivers  of  Paradise,  that  to- 
gether watered  the  whole  earth,  going  each  a  different 
way,  and  yet  issuing  from  a  single  head."  ^  Nor  can  we 
study  the  sacred  text  without  seeing,  that  while  each  of 
these  streams  contains  the  same  waters  of  grace,  drawn 
from  the  same  fountain,  they  appreciably  separate,  so 
far  as  concerns  the  regions  which  they  reach.  Thus 
St.  Matthew  turned  towards  the  devout  Jew ;  St.  Mark, 
to  the  practical  Roman  ;  St.  Luke  spoke  to  men  as 
grouped  by  the  then  common  and  almost  universal 
Greek  tongue ;  St.  John,  to  humanity  as  united  by  that 
still  more  universal  sympathy  produced  by  a  common 
sense  of  sin,  and  a  mystic  yearning  for  the  truth  of 
God.  So  as  to  St.  John,  both  in  his  epistles  and  gos- 
pel, as  contrasted  with  St.  Paul.  Remember  that  the 
Western  and  Eastern  minds,  in  reference  to  revealed 
truth,  rested  on  widely  separated  planes.  The  Western 
mind  pondered  over  the  divine  nature  as  it  came  in 
contact  with  man ;  the  Eastern,  over  the  divine  nature 
in  its  relations  to  itself  What  stirred  the  West  to  its 
inmost  depths  were  the  questions  of  free-will  and  of  sin  ; 
what  most  agitated  the  East  were  refinements  on  the 
doctrine  of  the  Three  in  One.^  Western  Orthodoxy 
took  maji's  nature  as  a  basis,  and  ascended  from  thence 
to  God's  justice  and  redemption ;  Eastern  Orthodoxy 
took  GoiVs  nature  as  a  basis,  and  descended  from  this 
to  7na7i's  sin  and  salvability.  And  it  would  seem  as  if 
while  St.  Paul's  dogmatic  writings  were  pointed  directly 

1  Ilulsean  Lecture  on  the  ^[an^foldness  of  Scripture. 

2  Milman's  Latin  Christianity^  Vol.  I.  pp.  22-24. 


CREEDS:    WHY    NOT    DIVINELY    PRESCRIBED.  47 

to  the  Western  mind,  so  St.  John  was  to  be  more  pecul- 
iarly the  Apostle  to  the  East.  Observe  how  St.  Paul, 
in  his  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  begins  with  man's  sinful- 
ness and  ruin  as  a  base  ;  and  how  St.  John,  in  his  Gos- 
pel, begins  with  the  mystical  nature  of  God.  "  Who  can 
fail  to  see  in  the  great  Apostle  of  Tarsus,  in  his  discur- 
sive intellect,  in  his  keen  dialectics,  in  his  philosophic 
training,  the  man  armed  to  dispute  with  Stoic  and  Epi- 
curean at  Athens  ;  who  should  teach  the  Church  how  she 
should  take  the  West  for  her  inheritance  ?  Nor  less  was 
he  the  man  who,  by  the  first  struggles  of  his  inner  life, 
and  the  consequent  fulness  and  power  with  which  he 
brought  out  the  scheme  of  our  justification,  should  be- 
come the  spiritual  forefather  of  the  Augustines  and 
Luthers,  of  all  those  who  have  brought  out  for  us,  with 
the  sense  of  personal  guilt,  the  sense,  also,  of  personal 
deliverance,  the  consciousness  of  a  personal  standing 
of  each  one  of  us  before  God.  And  in  St.  John  — -  the 
full  significance  of  whose  writings  for  the  Church  is 
probably  yet  to  be  revealed,  and  it  may  be,  will  not 
appear  till  the  coming  in  of  the  nations  of  the  East  into 
the  fold  —  we  have  the  progenitor  of  every  mystic,  in  the 
nobler  sense  of  the  word,  —  of  every  contemplative 
spirit  that  has  delighted  to  sink  and  to  lose  itself,  and 
the  sense  of  its  own  littleness,  in  the  brightness  and  in 
the  glory  of  God.  Shall  we  not  thank  God,  shall  we  not 
recognize  as  part  of  His  loving  wisdom,  that  thus  none 
are  left  out  ;  that,  while  there  are  evidetitly  among  men 
two  leading  types  of  mi?id,  He  has  made  provision  for 
them  both  ;  for  the  discursive  and  the  intititive  ;  for  the 
schoolman  and  the  mystic  ;  for  them  who  trust  through 
knowing  to  see,  and  for  them,  also,  who  believe  that  only 
through  seeiftg  they  can  know  ;    that,  whatever  in  their 


48  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

intellectual  condition  meft  may  be,  the  net  is  laid  out  to 
catch  themy^ 

But  if  from  the  cross  these  several  roads  diverge, 
reaching  all  the  distinct  regions  of  human  temperament 
and  intellect,  so  on  the  very  tracks  through  which  grace 
travels  man-ward,  may  faith  travel  God-ward.  God  has 
not  opened  these  various  approaches  to  the  human  heart 
in  order  that  they  should  be  barred  up,  whenever  the 
sinner  seeks  to  approach  by  the  same  channel  by  which 
he  was  reached.  The  channel  is  one  of  ingress  as  well 
as  of  egress ;  it  is  open  for  the  sinner  when  he  seeks 
the  word,  as  well  as  for  the  word  seeking  the  sinner. 
And  one  of  the  great  blessings  attending  the  absence 
of  a  divine  compendium  of  systematic  theology  is,  that 
there  is  thus  opened  in  Scripture  such  a  liberty  as  will 
embrace  within  its  gracious  promises  all  phases  which 
a  devout  faith  in  Christ  may  assume.  The  extent  and 
limit  of  this  liberty  I  will  for  a  moment  illustrate. 

(I.)  Take,  for  instance,  the  question  of  predestina- 
tion and  free-will ;  and  here  we  will  find  this  liberty 
admirably  stated  by  Cecil :  "  No  man  will  preach 
the  gospel  so  freely  as  the  Scriptures  preach  it,"  writes 
that  most  able  and  faithful  divine,  "  unless  he  will  sub- 
mit to  talk  like  an  Antinomian,  in  the  estimation  of 
a  great  body  of  Christians  ;  nor  will  any  man  preach  it 
so  practically  as  the  Scriptures,  unless  he  will  submit  to 
be  called,  by  as  large  a  body,  an  Arminian.  Many 
think  they  have  found  a  middle  path,  which  is,  in  fact, 
neither  one  thing  nor  another,  since  it  is  not  the  incom- 
prehensible but  grand  scheme  of  the  Bible."  ^  "  If 
there  be  not  free-will  in  God,"  so  exclaims  St.  Augus- 

1  Trench,  Eulsean  Lecture  on  the  Manifoldness  of  Scripture. 

2  See  fully  on  this  pomt,  Mosley  On  Predestination,  p.  77. 


CREEDS  :    WHY    NOT    DIVINELY    PRESCRIBED.  49 

tine,  "  there  is  no  God  to  save  us  ;  if  there  be  not  free- 
will in  man,  there  is  no  Man  to  be  saved."  So,  in 
setting  forth  the  gospel,  the  faithful  expositor  will  press 
the  more  strongly,  sometimes  the  one  and  sometimes 
the  other  of  these  great  truths,  always  keeping  within 
the  limit  which  forbids  him  to  hold  either  the  one  or  the 
other  otherwise  than  in  its  full  force. 

(2.)  And  so  with  regard  to  the  doctrine  of  conversion, 
supposing  conversion  to  mean  in  this  sense  a  moral 
change  of  heart  and  life.  And  on  this  point  Tholuck 
thus  truly  speaks  :  "  According  to  the  diversity  of  natu- 
ral dispositions  will  men  be  brought,  at  different  periods, 
to  the  sense  of  the  value  of  such  a  faith.  One  passes 
through  the  sharpest  conflict  at  his  first  awakening ; 
another,  in  the  season  of  base  lukewarmness  which  so 
frequently  follows  the  first  glow  of  love;  a  third  is 
drawn  to  Jesus  with  feelings  and  views  not  strongly 
defined,  and  only  after  long  intercourse  with  Him  learns 
to  know  his  own  corruption,  and  to  rely  firmly  on  the 
atonement,  when  he  has  already  tasted  somewhat  of  the 
Saviour's  grace.  This  latter  way  God  often  chooses 
with  minds  of  strong  powers,  but  whose  depravity  is 
proportionally  deep  ;  who,  if  they  had  been  made  fully 
sensible  of  their  own  corruption  before  Christ  had  been 
manifested  to  them,  would  have  sunk  stupefied  in  the 
arms  of  despair.  For  this  reason  it  is  impossible  to  lay 
down  any  settled  modes  of  conversion  ;  the  Spirit  of 
God  *bloweth  where  He  listeth,  and  as  He  listeth.* 
Only  earthly  things  are  to  be  determined  by  line  and 
measure ;  divine  things  are  not  contrary  to,  but  above 
our  line  and  measure."  And  this  question  is  inde- 
pendent of  that  of  baptismal  grace.  Luther  attributed 
to  the  sacraments  a  very  high  degree  of  spiritual  effi- 
4 


50  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

cacy.  Zuinglius  held  them  to  be  mere  commemorative 
exercises.  Calvin  took  an  intermediate  position  between 
the  two,  holding  that  the  .sacraments,  like  the  sacred 
text,  are  the  vehicle  of  divine  truth,  but  involve  no 
opus  operatum,  and  may  be,  in  like  manner,  wrested 
to  the  destruction  of  those  who  unbelievingly  receive.^ 
Yet  Luther,  Calvin,  and  Zuinglius  held  with  equal  rigor 
the  same  truth  of  the  necessity  of  a  conscious,  volun 
tary  moral  change. 

II.  But  I  proceed  to  notice  two  objections  which 
may  be  naturally  offered  to  the  proposition  that  the 
Bible  sets  forth  no  systematic  creed,  but  that  a  creed 
is  the  believer^s  response  to  Revelation,  which  is  the 
declaration  of  God.  It  is  argued,  firsts  that  the  in- 
dividual liberty  thus  allowed  is  the  parent  of  universal 
license.     The  position  has  been  thus  expressed  :  — 

"  This  is  the  book  where  each  his  dogma  seeks, 
And  this  the  book  where  each  his  dogma  finds." 

But  the  falsity  of  this  position  will  be  seen  from  the 
following  observations  :  — 

(i.)  So  incompatible  is  an  honest  reception  of  the 
sacred  text  with  such  license,  that  there  is  scarcely  a 
heresy  whose  advocates  have  not  found  it  necessary  to 
mutilate  that  text,  or  to  affix  to  it  a  non-natural  sense. 
Either,  like  Dr.   Priestly,   they  declare  that   St.   John, 

1  "  Quamobrem  fixum  maneat,  non  esse  alias  sacramentorum  quam 
verbi  Dei  partes;  qua;  sunt  oft'ere  nobis  ac  proponere  Christum,  et  in  eo 
coelestis  gratiae  thesaurus:  nihil  autem  conferunt  aut  prosunt  nisi  fide  ac- 
cepta."  Inst.  iv.  §  17.  This  high  view  is  sustained  throughout  the  same 
book.  In  his  controversy  with  Westphel,  he  denied  that  he  limited  his 
belief  to  a  merely  spiritual  presence  in  the  Eucharist,  and  while  rejecting 
the  idea  of  a  local  presence  of  Christ's  body,  held  to  one  that  was  dynam- 
ical.   Hagenbach,  Ex$.  of  Doct.  by  Shedd,  Vol.  II.  §  259,  note. 


CREEDS  :    WHY    NOT    DIVINELY    PRESCRIBED.  5 1 

like  Homer,  sometimes  "  nodded  ; "  or,  like  Strauss,  they 
rarefy  particular  passages  into  myths ;  or,  like  the  Gnos- 
tics, they  eliminate  whole  books  ;  or,  like  the  Romanists, 
they  affix  a  patristic  gloss,  which  gloss  varies  accord- 
ing to  the  interpreter's  mind. 

(2.)  That  the  variations  of  exegesis  which  arise  among 
honest  interpreters  of  the  Word,  who  accept  it  as  the 
sole  rule  of  faith,  spring,  not  from  uncertainty  in  the 
sacred  text,  but  from  the  differences  of  mental  structure, 
is  shown  by  the  fact  that  there  is  no  creed  that  is  not 
in  like  manner  affected  by  this  variation.^  Thus  the  Ar- 
ticles of  the  English  Church  were  framed  with  pecul- 
iar care  on  the  very  questions  of  grace  which  have  just 
been  specifically  noticed ;  yet  in  the  construction  of  these 
articles  those  same  fundamental  variations  of  stand- 
point are  exhibited  at  least  as  freely  as  in  the  interpre- 
tation of  the  inspired  records.  No  one  can  doubt, 
for  instance,  the  loyalty  of  Tillotson  to  these  Articles ; 
yet  in  what  strong  contrast  is  his  interpretation  to  that 
of  Toplady,  equally  honest  in  his  devotion  to  these 
great  symbols  of  faith ;  and  Calvinists  and  Armin- 
ians  have  differed  as  much  about  the  Articles  as  they 
differed  about  the  sacred  text.  So  the  Westminster 
Confession  was  drawn  for  the  express  purpose  of  deter- 
mining those  questions  which  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  left 
open  ;  and  yet,  in  the  interpretation  of  this  standard,  the 
schools  of  Andover  and  Princeton  differ,  I  apprehend, 
even  more  widely  than  do  devout  Arminians  and  Cal- 
vinists in  the  English  Church.  So  no  papal  bull  was 
able  to  quiet  the  Jansenist  controversy  ;  but  each  new 
test  increased  the  points  on  which  interpreters  differed. 
The  more  minute  and  copious  the  standards,  the  more 
numerous  and  refined  became  the  questions  at  issue. 
1  See  Appendix  A. 


52  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

(3.)  Doctrinal  formularies,  from  the  abstractness  and 
succinctness  of  their  phraseology,  open  points  of  depart- 
ure which  cannot  be  found  in  the  inspired  narrative. 
The  abstract  has  interpretations  possible  to  it  which  are 
impossible  to  the  concrete:  the  Idea,  those  which  are 
impossible  to  the  Fact.  What  theoretic  statement,  for 
instance,  of  the  Redeemer's  miraculous  power  could  so 
close  up  controversy  as  the  record  of  those  miracles 
themselves  ?  And  hence  it  often  has  been  the  case  that 
men  who  have  rejected  large  portions  of  the  sacred 
text,  have  subscribed,  as  in  the  case  of  Dr.  Middleton, 
and  of  the  mythical  Lutheran  interpreters,  the  most  or- 
thodox of  creeds.  The  words  "  miracle,"  and  "  inspira- 
tion," and  "  Divine,"  they  generalize  into  abstractions, 
or  universal  predicates  of  all  God's  works  ;  but  not  so 
with  the  awful  and  isolated  words  and  acts  of  our  Lord. 

(4.)  God's  promises  are  eminently  to  those  who  faith- 
fully search  His  Word,  as  distinguished  from  "  the  tra- 
ditions of  men  ;  "  and  a  wisdom  above  all  other  wisdom 
is  assured  to  those  who,  pondering  over  its  sacred 
pages,  and  accepting  them  fully  and  in  their  natural 
sense,  seek  for  light.*  "  My  word  shall  not  return  unto 
me  void,  but  it  shall  accomplish  that  which  I  please, 
and  it  shall  prosper  in  the  thing  whereto  I  send  it."  ^ 
"  Search  the  Scriptures  ;  .  .  .  they  are  they  which  testify 
of  me."  ^  "  Faith  cometh  by  hearing,  and  hearing  by 
the  Word  of  God."  ^  "  Receive  with  meekness  the  in- 
grafted Word,  which  is  able  to  save  your  souls."  ^  "  The 
Holy  Scriptures  which  are  able  to  make  thee  wise  unto 
salvation,  through  Christ  Jesus."  ^  These  promises  are 
to  the  sacred  text,  and  to  that  alone. 

1  Prov.  viii.  34;  John  v.  39.  2  ig.  ly.  10. 

8  John  V.  39.  4  Rom.  x.  17. 

6  James  i.  21.  «  2  Tim.  iii.  15. 


CREEDS  :    WHY    NOT    DIVINELY    PRESCRIBED.  53 

(5.)  History  tells  us  that  religious  indifferentism  is 
far  more  likely  to  be  produced  by  the  arbitrary  and  ab- 
solute imposition  of  a  human  test,  than  by  that  liberty 
which  calls  upon  the  soul  devoutly  to  seek  for  truth  in 
the  sacred  text.  Thus  there  was  far  greater  religious 
indifferentism  in  England  during  the  operation  of  the 
Test  Acts,  than  subsequent  to  their  repeal.  The  reign 
of  the  first  three  Hanoverian  kings,  when  these  acts 
were  in  force,  was  one  of  disgraceful  religious  torpor, 
when  almost  all  signed  and  conformed,  but  not  many 
vitally  and  fervently  believed.  So  indifferentism  exists 
largely  in  the  Romish  Church.  It  is  constantly  avowed, 
while  the  standards  of  the  Church  are  accepted  ;  and 
now,  even  under  the  mask  of  an  outer  submission  to 
papal  supremacy,  it  is  questionable  whether  the  great 
body  of  thinking  men  in  that  communion  do  not  treat 
religion  as  a  matter  for  the  state,  and  not  for  the  indi- 
vidual heart.  Indifferentism  exists,  also,  in  our  own 
New  England,  wherever  philosophical  superciliousness 
is  permitted  by  society  to  hurl  at  religious  earnestness 
anathemas  which  pretend  to  be  as  infallible  as  those 
of  the  Papal  Court.  Indifferentism,  in  fact,  will  always 
exist  wherever  you  allow  any  external  authority, 
whether  it  be  that  of  a  pretended  infallible  church,  or 
that  of  a  self-constituted  but  equally  pretentious  philo- 
sophical coterie,  to  override  the  convictions  of  the  indi- 
vidual heart.  But  allow  these  convictions  freely  to 
form  and  express  themselves,  and  the  day  for  indiffer- 
entism is  past.  In  matters  political,  indifferentism  may 
well  exist  under  a  despotism  which  tramples  down  all 
individual  expression  of  thought;  but  political  indiffer- 
entism cannot  exist  in  a  country  such  as  ours  where  free- 
dom of  thought  has  full  scope.     And  so  in  matters  the- 


54  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

ological ;  and  here,  on  this  base  of  rehgious  liberty,  do 
I  most  confidently  rest  the  doctrines  of  the  cross.  For, 
if  our  hearts  are  turned  in  prayer  to  honestly  search  the 
Scriptures  ;  if  with  meekness  we  receive  the  ingrafted 
word ;  if  we  do  this  as  conscious,  responsible  creatures, 
intent  upon  possessing  ourselves  of  the  Revelation  of 
God  ;  if  we  come  to  the  work  undriven,  not  as  if  com- 
pelled by  arbitrary  authority  to  mechanically  receive  a 
prescribed  formula,  but  as  individuals  determined  to 
"  read,  mark,  learn,  and  inwardly  digest "  the  Divine 
message,  it  cannot  be  but  that  an  earnest,  living,  sav- 
ing faith  in  the  Cross  of  Christ  will  be  the  reward. 

2dly.  But  it  may  in  the  second  place  be  objected  to 
this  position,  that  it  supersedes  the  use  of  creeds  as 
human  standards  of  faith.  So  far  from  this  being  the 
case,  I  apprehend  that  this  view  makes  them  peculiarly 
necessary,  for  the  following  reasons  :  — 

(i.)  The  creed  thus  becomes  man's  response  to  God, 
as  inspiration  is  God's  utterance  to  man.  It  is  so  from 
its  very  nature.  "  Rehearse  the  articles  of  thy  belief ^^ 
so  asks  the  Church  of  England  in  her  Catechism  ;  and 
the  answer  is,  "  /believe  in  God,"  &c.  It  is  not,  "  This 
is  a  perfect  compendium  of  God's  plan  of  salvation ; " 
but  it  is,  "  I  believe  in  certain  grand  though  insulated 
truths."  So  virtually  speak,  in  fact,  all  Christian  com- 
munions, uniting  as  they  do  in  this  most  general  of 
symbols.  And  so  particular  communions  and  particu- 
lar persons  speak,  when,  in  reference  to  points  more 
minute,  and  distinctions  more  refined,  they  confess  their 
faith.i 

1  "  To  believe,  therefore,  as  the  word  stands  in  the  first  of  the  Creed, 
and  not  only  so,  but  is  diffused  through  every  article  and  proposition  of 
it,  is  to  assent  to  the  whole  and  every  part  of  it,  as  to  a  certain  and  infal- 


USE    OF    CREEDS.  55 

(2.)  A  creed  is  a  protest  against  error,  put  forth  for 
the  purpose  of  specifically  condemning  such  error.  No 
creed  claims  to  be  a  systematic  exposition  of  all  truth 
for  all  time  ;  it  is  simply  a  statement  of  such  truth  as  is 
necessary  to  shut  out  a  specific  error  by  which  the 
Church  is  at  that  time  assailed.  Thus,  at  the  time  of 
the  formation  of  the  Apostles'  Creed,  neither  the  divin- 
ity of  Christ,  nor  the  atoning  merit  of  His  blood,  was 
doubted  in  the  Church  ;  and  these  truths  are  implied 
rather  than  expressed  in  that  venerable  symbol.  But 
the  heresy  that  Christ  did  not  actually  suffer  and  die, 
but  was  represented  at  the  passion  by  a  phantom,  —  a 
heresy  at  that  time  prevalent,  —  was  met  by  a  distinct 
and  particular  statement  of  His  crucifixion  and  death. 
So,  at  the  formation  of  the  Nicene  Creed,  the  Arian 
heresy  was  that  which  was  the  most  instant  and  peril- 
ous ;  and  this  was  met  by  asserting  dogmatically  the 
divinity  and  atoning  sacrifice  of  the  Lord.  Then,  at 
the  time  of  the  Reformation,  the  errors  by  which  the 
truth  was  most  closely  assailed,  were  those  of  the  as- 
cription of  divine  authority  to  tradition  ;  salvation 
through  human  merit ;  Pelagian  views  as  to  sin  and 
grace  ;  Church  infallibility;  the  power  of  works  of 
supererogation,  and  purgatory ;  and  these  were  met  by 
specific  statements  of  belief,  necessary  to  preserve  the 
Church's  then  orthodoxy  and  integrity.    But  it  was  never 

lible  truth  revealed  by  God  (who  by  reason  of  His  infinite  knowledge 
cannot  be  deceived,  and  by  reason  of  His  transcendent  holiness  cannot 
deceive),  and  delivered  unto  us  in  the  writings  of  the  blessed  Apostles  and 
Prophets,  immediately  inspired,  moved,  and  acted  upon  by  God,  out  of  whose 
writings  this  brief  sum  o/" necessarj'  points  of  faith  was  first  collected,  and 
this  is  properly  to  believe,  which  is  our  first  consideration ;  so  to  say,  I 
BELIEVE,  is  to  make  confession  or  external  expression  of  this  faith,  which  is 
the  second  consideration  propounded."  —  Pearson  On  the  Creed,  Art.  I. 


56  THE   SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

pretended  that  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  were  a  complete 
compendium  of  truth. ^  This  on  their  face  they  dis- 
claim. Particular  churches,  they  declare,  specifying 
those  of  Jerusalem,  Alexandria,  and  Antioch,  "  have 
erred  ;  so  also  the  Church  of  Rome  hath  erred,  not 
only  in  their  living  and  manner  of  ceremonies,  but  also 
in  matters  of  faith."  ^  And  again,  —  "General  coun- 
cils may  err,  and  have  sometimes  erred,  even  in  things 
pertaining  to  God."  ^  And  then,  again,  —  "  It  is  not 
necessary  that  traditions  and  ceremonies  be  in  all 
places  one,  or  strictly  like ;  for  at  all  times  they  have 
been  diverse,  and  may  be  changed  according  to  the  di- 
versity of  countries,  times,  and  men's  manners,  so  that 
nothing  be  ordained  against  God's  word."  *  But  it  was 
against  the  then,  most  dangerous  heresies  alone  that  the 
Thirty-nine  Articles  spoke  ;  and  they  contain  no  precise 
dogmatic  utterance  on  the  two  questions  by  which  the 
orthodoxy  of  the  Church   is   now  most  closely  pressed, 

1  Dr.  Hook  cites  several  authorities  to  this  point,  of  which  I  quote  one : 
"  It  is  a  mistake  to  imagine  that  creeds  Avere  at  first  intended  to  teach,  in 
full  and  explicit  terms,  all  that  should  be  necessary  to  be  believed  by 
Christians.  As  heresies  gave  occasion,  new  articles  were  inserted;  not 
that  they  were  originally  of  greater  importance  than  an}'  other  articles 
omitted ;  but  the  opposition  made  to  some  doctrines  rendered  it  the  more 
necessary  to  insist  upon  the  explicit  belief  and  profession  of  them." 
Waterland,  quoted  in  Hook's  Die.  of  the  Church,  tit.  Creeds.  "  "When 
there  is  a  revival  of  faith,  if  this  revival  coincides  with,  or  is  succeeded 
by,  a  period  of  energetic  thought,  a  deeper  or  clearer  insight  will  be 
gained  into  certain  portions  of  truth,  especially  appropriate  to  the  circum- 
stances and  exigencies  of  the  age,  and  which  have  not  yet  been  set 
forth  in  their  fulness.  Thus,  to  cite  the  two  most  memorable  examples, 
the  true  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was  brought  out  more  distinctly  in  the 
fourth  century;  that  of  Justification  by  Faith,  in  the  sixteenth;  the  prev- 
alence of  error  acting  in  both  cases  as  a  motive  and  spur  to  the  clearer 
demarcation  and  exposition  of  the  truth.^''  —  Hare,  Mission  of  the  Com- 
forter, note  G.  p.  249. 

2  Art.  xix.  3  Art.  xxi.  4  ^jt.  xxxiv. 


USE    OF    CREEDS. 


57 


viz.,  eternal  punishment  and  plenary  inspiration.  Creeds 
and  articles,  therefore,  are  like  a  line  of  fortresses  by 
which  a  country  is  defended  from  enemies  ;  and  which 
from  time  to  time  are  built  up  on  the  side  on  which 
the  enemy  appears.  They  are  therefore  not  extensions 
of  the  truth,  but  simply  defenses  ;  and  consequently,  as 
the  Sixth  Article  states,  "  Holy  Scripture  containeth  all 
things  necessary  to  salvation ;  so  that  whatever  is  not 
read  therein,  nor  may  be  proved  thereby,  is  not  to  be  re- 
quired of  any  man,  that  it  should  be  believed  as  an  article 
of  faith,  or  be  thought  requisite  or  necessary  to  salvation^ 
(3.)  Creeds  and  articles  become  thus  the  tests  of  in- 
dividual membership  in  the  church  by  which  they  are 
imposed.  They  are  not  the  inspired  exponents  of 
truth.  This  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  no  such  creeds  or 
articles  are  set  forth  in  the  sacred  text ;  and  that  they 
are  subject  to  that  liability  to  error  which  belongs  to  all 
things  human.  They  claim  belief,  not  because  imposed 
by  the  Church,  venerable  as  that  authority  is,  but  when, 
as  is  stated  in  the  Eighth  Article  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
^land,  in  reference  to  the  early  creeds,  "they  maybe 
proved  by  most  certain  warrants  of  Holy  Scripture." 
But  while  this  is  the  sole  base  of  authority  on  which 
they   rest,^    they  are    nevertheless   final    and   absolute 

1  As  to  the  meaning  of  the  term  "  Authority  "  Archbishop  Whately 
has  some  pertinent  remarks  in  the  Appendix  to  his  Logic :  "  This  term  is 
sometimes  employed  in  its  primary  sense,  when  we  refer  to  any  one's 
example,  testimony,  or  judgment;  as  when  we  speak  of  correcting  a 
reading  in  some  book,  on  the  authority  of  an  ancient  MS.,  giving  a  state- 
ment of  some  fact,  on  the  authority  of  such  and  such  historians,  «&:c.  In 
this  sense  the  word  ansAvers  pretty  nearly  to  the  Latin  Aucioritas.  It  is 
a  claim  to  deference.  Sometimes  it  is  employed  as  equivalent  to  *  Potes- 
tas,'  power;  as  when  we  speak  of  the  authority  of  a  magistrate,  &c. 
This  ia  a  claim  to  obedience.  It  is  in  the  former  sense  that  it  is  used  in 
our  20th  Article,  whick  speaks  of  the  Church  ha.viug  power  to  decree  rites 


58  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

standards  between  the  church  that  imposes  them,  and 
members  of  that  church.  Nor  have  men  any  claim  to 
remain  in  such  church,  to  hold  its  benefices,  or  enjoy 
its  communion,  if  they  maintain  views  in  conflict  with 
the  tests  it  imposes.  "  Every  particular  or  national 
church  hath  authority  to  ordain,  change,  and  abolish 
ceremonies  or  rites  of  the  Church,  ordained  only  by 
men's  authority,  so  that  all  things  be  done  to  edifying."  ^ 
So  "  the  Church  hath  authority  in  controversies  of 
faith  ;  "  and  though  it  is  "  not  lawful  for  the  Church  to 
ordain  any  thing  that  is  contrary  to  God's  Word,"  ^ 
yet,  in  questions  concerning  the  membership  in  its  own 
body,  its  own  standards  are  the  exclusive  tests.  These 
standards,  then,  become  the  tests  of  church  member- 
ship, while  the  Scriptures  are  the  sole  tests  of  truth.  ^ 
When  the  Church  from  time  to  time  sets  forth  articles 
of  belief,  these  are  to  be  construed  according  to  their 
natural  sense.  W^hoever  cannot  accept  them  in  such 
sense,  has  no  right  to  remain  in  the  church  that  im- 
poses them. 

III.     It  remains,  then,  for  us  to  consider  what  are  the 

and  ceremonies,  and  authority  in  controversies  of  faith.  On  the  other 
hand,  ench  particular  church  has  authority  in  the  other  sense,  viz :  Power 
over  its  own  members,  (as  long  as  they  choose  to  continue  members,) 
to  enforce  any  thing  not  contrary  to  God's  Word." 

1  Art.  xxxiv.  2  Art.  xx. 

3  "  If  you  ask  whose  judgment  ought  to  take  place,  the  judgment  of 
the  Church,  or  of  every  private  Christian?  I  answer,  the  judgment  of  the 
Church  of  necessity  must  take  place  as  to  external  government,  to  determine 
what  shall  beprofessed  and  practised  in  her  communion;  and  no  private 
Christian  has  any  ihinp  to  do  in  these  matters.  But  when  the  question 
is,  what  is  right  or  wrong,  true  or  false,  in  what  we  may  obey  and  in 
what  not,  here  every  private  Christian  who  will  not  believe  without  un- 
derstanding, nor  follow  his  guides  blindfold,  must  judge  for  himself;  and 
it  is  as  much  as  his  soul  is  worth  to  judge  right."  —  Dean  Sherlock,  Dis- 
course concerning  a  Judge  of  Controversies,  p.  11. 


SCRIPTURES  :    HOW    TO    BE    READ.  .   59 

practical  consequences  of  this,  the  silence  of  Scripture, 
as  to  all  creeds  or  articles  of  belief  And  these  prac- 
tical consequences  may  be  thus  stated. 

I  St.  As  the  Scriptures  are  the  sole  depositories  of  di- 
vine truth,  we  are  admonished  of  what  paramount  impor- 
tance it  is  for  us  to  make  them  the  objects  of  devout 
study.  Some  of  the  requisites  of  this  study  I  now  pro- 
ceed to  state. 

—  It  should  be  with  a  pure  intention ;  with  the  honest 
desire  of  honoring  God,  and  acquiring  the  knowledge  of 
salvation  through  His  word. 

—  For  devotional  reading  we  should  select  in  course 
lessons  from  those  portions  which  bear  practically  on 
our  own  hearts  and  lives ;  pausing  to  apply  each  passage 
to  ourselves  in  meditation  and  prayer.  A  careless  reader 
cannot  be  a  close  walker  with  God.  To  an  undevout 
reader  the  most  profound  texts  are  written  in  cipher ; 
prayer,  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  are  the  keys  by.  which  their 
meaning  is  disclosed. 

—  Our  attention  should  throughout  be  fixed  on  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  as  Him  whom  it  was  the  great  object 
of  Revelation  to  set  forth.  And  the  sacred  record  when 
thus  lifted  up  towards  Him,  like  the  prism  held  between 
us  and  the  light,  not  only  displays  Him  in  the  fulness 
and  manifoldness  of  His  glory,  but  glitters  itself  with  a 
lustre  before  unperceived. 

—  The  sins  and  shames  of  Scripture  characters  should 
be  applied  to  ourselves,  with  the  words,  "  Thou  art  the 
man."  Those  things  were  given  to  us  as  ensamples, 
lest  we,  too,  should  fall. 

—  Threats  as  well  as  promises  should  be  applied  to 
our  individual  souls  ;  none  so  secure  that  he  may  not 
fall ;  none  so  lost  but  that  he  may  be  reclaimed  by  the 


60  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

full  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  The  doctrinal 
books  {e.  g.  the  Epistles)  are  not  to  be  exclusively  read  in 
single  chapters  ;  but  at  distinct  periods  we  should  read 
each  of  them  through  by  itself,  in  this  way  drawing  out 
its  general  character  and  scope. ^ 

—  Figurative  language  should  be  carefully  distin- 
guished from  literal,  lest  the  Infinite  Presence  of  the  Tri- 
une God  be  limited  to  symbol,  or  type,  or  ceremony,  or 
place.  Nor  should  any  article  of  faith  be  based  on 
"metaphors,  parable,  or  single,  obscure,  and  figurative 
text.  "  2 

—  Subtle  speculations  are  to  be  avoided,  it  being  re- 
membered that  it  is  the  plain  meaning  that  belongs  to 
us,  and  that  it  is  the  immediate  duty  to  which  the  Script- 
ures apply.  The  veil  that  God  has  dropped  it  is  not  for 
us  to  pierce. 

—  Our  reading  should  be  periodical,  morning  and 
night;  it  should  be  thoughtful  and  devout.  Texts  of 
peace  and  instruction  should  be  repeated  to  the  sick  and 
dying ;  they  should  be  so  appropriated  in  the  daily  med- 
itations of  our  life,  that  in  our  own  dying  hour  they  may 
be  our  comfort  and  stay.* 

2d.  And  one  other  practical  consequence  remains  to 

1  Mr.  Locke  lays  great  stress  on  acquiring  this  habit.  "  It  must  be  re- 
peated again  and  again,  with  a  close  attention  to  the  tenor  of  the  dis- 
course, and  a  perfect  neglect  of  the  division  into  chapters  and  verses. 
On  the  contrary,  the  safest  way  is,  to  suppose  that  the  epistle  has  but  one 
business  and  aim,  until,  by  a  frequent  perusal  of  it,  you  are  forced  to  see 
that  there  are  distinct  independent  matters  in  it,  which  will  forwardly 
enough  show  themselves."  —  Preface  to  Treatise  on  the  Epistles  of  Saint 
Paul. 

2  Home's  Introduction,  Vol.  II.  p.  669,  from  which  some  of  the  above 
points  are  taken. 

3  "  Oratio  et  meditatio  conjunctione  necessaria  sibi  ad  invicem  copn- 
lantur.  Et  perorationem  illuminatur  meditatio,  et  in  meditatione  ex- 
ardescit  oratio."  —  St.  Bernard,  Opera,  torn.  V.  p.  260. 


CREEDS:     WHY    NOT    DIVINELY    PRESCRIBED.  6l 

be  considered  ;  and  that  is,  the  duty  of  a  tender  and 
comprehensive  toleration  of  those  who  differ  from  us  on 
points  which  the  sacred  text  does  not  determine.  For 
specific  purposes,  "  every  particular  or  national  church 
hath  authority  to  ordain,  change,  and  abolish  ceremonies 
or  rites  of  the  Church  ordained  only  by  men's  author- 
ity, so  that  all  things  be  done  to  edifying ;  "  ^  but  no 
visible  church,  or  school  in  such  church,  has  the  right  to 
break  up  the  unity  of  the  Church  Invisible,  by  laying 
down  tests  other  than  those  God's  Word  prescribes. 
"  Holy  Scripture  "  —  and  this  article  of  the  Anglican 
Church  cannot  be  too  frequently  repeated  —  "  contain- 
eth  all  things  necessary  to  salvation  ;  so  that  whatsoever 
is  not  read  therein,  nor  may  be  proved  thereby,  is  not  to 
be  required  of  any  man,  that  it  should  be  believed  as  an 
article  of  the  faith  ;  or  be  thought  requisite  or  necessary 
to  salvation." 

Loyal  must  we  indeed  be  to  every  ordinance  of  our 
Church,  whether  its  source  be  human  or  divine.  But 
while  this  loyalty  must  be  scrupulously  observed,  we 
must  jealously  beware  of  breaking  up  the  unity  of  that 
Holy  Spiritual  Church,  which  is  the  mystical  body  of  our 
blessed  Lord,  by  the  introduction  of  tests  based  "  on 
ceremonies  or  rites  ordained  only  by  man's  authority." 
In  things  essential,  unity  ;  in  things  non-essential,  lib- 
erty ;  in  all  things,  charity.  And  of  things  essential, 
the  only  test  is  that  which  has  just  been  pronounced  ; 
they  must  be  found  in,  or  proved  from,  the  Word  of  God, 
—  whatever  is  not  so,  is  not  of  the  essence  of  faith. 
Our  own  Church  must  be  obeyed  in  all  things,  ceremo- 
nial or  doctrinal  ]  but  in  matters  outside  of  scriptural 
prescription,  not  merely  charity  but  liberty  must  be  al- 
1  Art.  X2txiv. 


62  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

lowed  to  those  who  have  adopted  conclusions  differing 
from  our  own. 

Bishop  Jeremy  Taylor  closes  his  great  work  on  "  Lib- 
erty of  Prophesying,"  with  an  allegory  to  which  almost 
every  advocate  of  toleration  has  since  then  appealed. 
When  Abraham  was  once  sitting  in  his  tent,  —  so  he 
writes,  quoting  from  a  Jewish  author,  —  an  old  man  ap- 
proached him,  weary  with  age  and  travel.  Him  the  pa- 
triarch received  and  entertained,  until  he  discovered  that 
his  visitor  refused  to  join  with  him  in  the  adoration  of 
the  one  true  God.  Abraham  then  thrust  him  ignomini- 
ously  out;  but  afterwards  God  called  Abraham,  and 
asked  him,  "  Where  is  the  stranger  whom  thou  didst 
entertain  ?  "  "I  repelled  him,  because  he  would  not 
worship  Thee,"  was  the  reply.  But  God  answered,  "  One 
hundred  years  have  /  suffered  him,  though  he  dishonored 
me;  and  couldst  not  thou  endure  him  one  night?  " 

So  ran  the  tradition,  and  so  spoke  Bishop  Jeremy 
Taylor  on  the  question  of  the  toleration  of  those  who 
deny  even  a  God.  But  when  we  rise  to  differences 
among  devout  followers  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  we  hear 
breathing  in  our  ear  injunctions  still  more  sublime.  It 
is  no  longer  within  the  tent  that  we  rest,  sharing  the  pa- 
triarch's dignity  and  repose  ;  but  without^  with  the  Man 
of  Sorrows,  the  one  Saviour  of  men,  in  the  waste  over 
which  sweep  the  world's  contempt  and  scorn.  Sin, 
within  the  tent,  may  be  reveling  in  the  haughtiest  indif- 
ference to  the  Divine  message  ;  but  still  that  heavenly 
Visitor  pleads,  "  Open,  and  let  me  in,  for  I  bear  the  bur- 
den of  thy  sin  ;  I  die  that  thou  mayest  live  ;  open,  and  I 
will  sup  with  thee,  and  thou  with  Me."  No  upheaval  of 
indignant  rock  by  Him,  the  Almighty  God  ;  no  flash  of 
consuming  lightning ;   only  this  tender  pleading  through 


CREEDS.  63 

the  long  night  of  rebelHous  sin.  There,  with  the  Master, 
let  us  stand,  bearing  His  reproach,  breathing  His  spirit, 
striving  at  once  for  His  zeal  and  His  love.  For  as 
His  messengers  we  have  a  sinful  w^orld  to  plead  with 
and  to  win ;  and  grievously  will  our  trust  be  betrayed, 
and  guilt-stained  may  be  our  hands,  if  we  spend  our 
strength  and  dishonor  our  cause  by  struggles  with  each 
other  about  points  as  to  which  His  Word  leaves  each  of 
us  free.  With  the  Lord  Jesus,  then,  let  us  stand  without 
the  tent,  setting  forth  His  truth  in  the  voice  He  has 
given  each  of  us,  knowing  that  there  will  be  those  in 
the  wide  world  of  sinners  to  whom  that  voice,  feeble  as 
it  is,  wull  speak  with  power.  Let  us  stand  with  Him 
without  the  tent,  and  soon  this  w^orld's  blindness  will  be 
over,  and  in  perfect  light  the  triumphant  Church  will  see 
truth  as  it  is. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE    VIRGIN    MARY. 

IT  has  pleased  God  to  screen  from  us  by  a  veil  al- 
most impenetrable  any  objects  which  might  with- 
draw our  thoughts  from  the  worship  of  His  dear  Son. 
We  observe  this  with  regard  to  the  souls  of  His  de- 
parted saints,  concerning  whom  we  know  not  whether 
they  are  conscious  of  the  strivings  and  yearnings  of 
men,  and  whether  the  wishes  and  wants  of  those  whom 
they  loved  on  earth  are  the  subject  of  their  heavenly 
interest  and  care.  The  same  veil,  also,  is  cast  over  the 
Apostles  of  the  New  Testament  Church,  whose  history, 
so  far  as  earth  is  concerned,  is  singularly  incomplete  ; 
and  of  whom  we  have  not  one  word  of  information  sub- 
sequent to  the  period  on  which  they  entered  on  the  glo- 
rious life  of  heaven.-^ 

It  is  in  respect  to  the  Virgin  Mary,  however,  that  this 
reserve  is  most  marked.  Full  as  are  the  notices  of  her 
in  connection  with  our  Lord's  miraculous  birth,  we  hear 
almost  nothing  of  her  in  relation  to  His  public  ministry, 
and  nothing  at  all  of  her  as  one  of  the  glorious  host 
of  heaven.  It  is  true  that  Mary  and  Martha,  Mary 
Magdalene,  and  "  other  women,"  are  frequently  men- 
tioned as  being  among  those  who  attended  the  Lord  ; 

1  The  contrast  in  this  respect  with  Mohammedanism  is  very  marked ; 
the  performances  of  its  saints  and  prophets  in  the  next  world  being  one 
of  the  chief  features  of  its  pretended  revelation. 


THE   VIRGIN    MARY.  65 

but  the  position  of  the  Virgin,  in  spiritual  matters,  is 
clearly  defined  in  that  remarkable  passage,  when,  upon 
one  saying  to  Him,  "  Thy  mother  stands  without^  de- 
siring to  speak  unto  Thee ; "  "He  stretched  forth  His 
hands  towards  His  disciples^  and  said.  Behold  my  mother 
and  my  brethren  I  For  whosoever  shall  do  the  will  of  my 
Father  which  is  in  heaven,  the  same  is  my  brother,  and 
sister,  and  mother."  ^  So  in  the  marriage  of  Cana  of 
Galilee,  in  answer  to  an  intercession  of  Mary,  he  replied, 
"  What  have  I  to  do  with  thee  :  Mine  hour  "  (or  the 
period  appointed  by  Myself  for  the  performance  of  this 
particular  work)  "  is  not  yet  come."  ^  And  the  only 
interpretation  we  can  assign  to  the  preservation  of  this 
remarkable  reply,  is,  that  it  was  intended  to  show  that 
in  the  exercise  of  His  supernatural  power,  the  Virgin 
Mother  was  utterly  dissociated  from  the  Divine  Son. 
And  what  is  at  least  equally  remarkable,  is  the  fact, 
which  is  the  peculiar  subject  of  this  chapter,  that  in  the 
narrative  of  our  Lord^s  divine  work  as  the  Mediator 
between  God  and  man^  Mary  is  throughout  carefully 
screened  from  our  eye  Others  who  were  employed  by 
Him  as  missionaries  of  mercy  and  of  power,  are  men- 
tioned to  us  in  this  their  sacred  capacity ;  Mary  never. 
A  centurion  intercedes  for  a  sick  servant,  and  the  inter- 
cession was  effective.^  His  disciples  cry  unto  Him, 
"  Lord,  save  us,  we  perish ;  and  He  arose,  and  calmed 
the  sea."  ■*  A  certain  ruler  worshiped  Him,  saying, 
"  My  daughter  is  even  now  dead  :  but  come  and  lay  Thy 
hand  upon  her,  and  she  shall  live  ;  "  ^  and  He  came  and 
took  her  by  the  hand,  and  the  maid  arose.     In  many 

1  Matt.  xii.  46-50.  2  John  ii.  4. 

8  Matt.  viu.  5.  4  Matt.  viii.  25, 26. 

6  Matt.  ix.  18. 

5 


66  THE   SILENCE   OF   SCRIPTURE. 

instances,  after  the  Lord's  ascension,  the  Apostles  ap- 
plied to  Him  for  miraculous  power,  and  in  each  case 
the  prayer  was  granted.  But  we  hear  of  no  intercession 
made  to  Him  by  Mary  except  that  in  Cana  of  Galilee, 
and  in  that  case  the  intercession  was  rebuked. 

So,  also,  we  have  frequent  mention  of  specific  dele- 
gations of  power.  Thus,  at  one  time,  the  Lord  "  called 
his  twelve  disciples  together,  and  gave  them  power  and 
authority  over  all  devils,  and  to  cure  diseases."  ^  Then, 
again,  He  sent  out  seventy,  with  other  powers.^  Then, 
after  the  resurrection,  the  eleven  were  charged  with  the 
great  work  of  evangelizing  the  world,  and  for  this  were 
endowed  with  miraculous  gifts.^  And  in  the  infant 
Church,  as  narrated  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  partic- 
ular Apostles  were  specifically  employed  in  miraculous 
work.  Yet  in  no  case  is  Mary  mentioned  as  thus  dele- 
gated or  thus  empowered. 

And  so,  again,  w^e  are  pointed  to  those  who  were  the 
intimate  attendants,  and  as  it  were  counsellors  of  the 
Lord,  during  His  obedience  and  passion.  There  were 
Peter,  and  James,  and  John,  who  were  with  Him  at 
Tabor  and  at  Gethsemane.  There  was  John  whom  he 
so  peculiarly  loved,  and  who  leaned  on  the  Lord's  breast 
at  the  Paschal  Supper.'*  There  was  Peter  to  whom  he 
said,  "  Blessed  art  thou,  Simon  Barjona,  —  thou  art  Pe- 
ter, on  this  rock," — on  the  confession  of  My  divinity, 
"  I  will  build  my  church  ;  "  ^  —  Peter  to  whom  He  gave 
the  keys  ;  ^  Peter  on  whom  he  looked  with  such  melting 
tenderness  in  the  judgment-hall  ;''  Peter  to  whom  he 
gave   the  final  command,  "Feed   my  sheep."®     There 

1  Luke  ix.  1.  2  Luke  x.  1. 

3  Matt,  xxviii.  16;  Luke  xxiv.  49.  ■*  John  xiii.  23. 

6  Matt.  xvi.  18.  6  Matt.  xvi.  19. 

7  Lake  xxii.  61.  8  John  xxi.  17. 


SILENCE   AS    TO    THE    VIRGIN.  67 

were  Mary  Magdalene,  and  Joanna,  and  Mary  the 
mother  of  James,  who  are  specified  as  first  at  the  sepul- 
chre.^ There  were  the  disciples  with  whom  He  com- 
muned at  Emmaus,^  and  those  whom  He  made  the 
chosen  witnesses  of  His  ascension.^  Yet  there  is  no  no- 
tice of  Mary  in  either  of  those  relations,  or  as  in  any  way 
the  partaker  of  the  counsels  of  the  Lord  when  in  His 
divine  work.  She  was,  it  is  true,  at  the  cross  ;  but  we 
are  informed  of  this  only  incidentally,  from  the  fact  that 
she  was  committed  to  John's  care,  not  John  to  her,  as 
would  have  been  the  case  had  she  been  assigned  a 
position  of  any  thing  like  superior  power  ;  and  it  is  the 
hojTic  of  John,  not  his  office,  with  which  her  name  is  to 
be  allied.*  She  is  not  mentioned  as  having  even  seen 
the  Lord  after  the  resurrection  ;  she  performs  no  act 
in  the  New  Testament  Church.  That  she  associated 
with  the  disciples  at  Jerusalem  after  His  ascension,  we 
are  indeed  informed,^  but  beyond  this,  there  is  no  rec- 
ord. Of  her  subsequent  life  and  death,  copious  as  is 
the  sacred  narrative  in  other  respects,  not  a  word  is 
told. 

Why,  then,  we  may  well  ask,  is  this  remarkable  si- 
lence preserved  as  to  one  so  highly  blessed  of  the  Lord  \ 
one  who  was  herself  honored  by  both  the  Old  and  New 
Testament  Church  as  the  mother  of  the  Lord  ;  one  who 
was  a  prophetess,  uttering  one  of  the  most  glorious 
hymns  the  sacred  history  records  ;  one  who  bore  the 
Lord,  and  watched  over  His  infancy,  and  carried  Him 
on  that  mysterious  Eg)'ptian  flight  1  Why  is  this  screen 
interposed  whenever  we  would  gaze  on  a  form  which, 

1  Luke  xxiv.  10.  2  Luke  xxiv.  13. 

8  Luke  xxiv.  48.  4  John  xix.  27. 

^  Acts  i.  14. 


68  SILENCE   AS   TO   THE   VIRGIN. 

of  all  Others  in  the  New  Testament  records,  is  next  to 
that  of  our  Blessed  Lord,  surrounded  with  associations 
the  most  sacred  and  tender  ? 

—  Sometimes,  when  a  great  picture  is  to  be  stud- 
ied, canopies  of  cloth  are  so  hung  on  either  side,  as 
not  merely  to  form  a  gradually  contracting  avenue  to  it, 
but  to  conceal  whatever  would  distract  the  eye.  And 
so  it  is  with  regard  to  the  great  central  truth  of  reve- 
lation :  God,  manifest  in  the  flesh.  Thither  all  lines 
of  history  as  well  as  prophecy  converge.  And  on  either 
side  of  its  approaches,  God,  in  the  great  gallery  of  His 
revealed  Word,  has  mercifully  dropped  veils,  so  that 
nothing  human  should  there  appear  which  would  draw 
us  from  the  worship  of  His  only  begotten  Son.  Let  us 
then  inquire,  ist,  what  is  this  central  truth ;  2dly,  to 
what  abuses  of  it  our  fallen  nature  tends  ;  and  sdly, 
how  this  practically  applies  to  our  hearts. 

I  St.  The  truth  itself:  and  this  the  Nicene  Creed  very 
clearly  states,  when  it  tells  us  that  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
"  the  only  begotten  Son  of  God ;  "  "  God  of  God,  light 
of  light,  very  God  of  very  God  ;  being  of  one  substance 
with  the  Father  j  "  "  for  us  men  and  our  salvation 
came  down  from  heaven,  and  was  incarnate  by  the  Holy 
Ghost  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  was  made  Man,  and  was 
crucified  for  us  under  Pontius  Pilate ; "  and  then  rose  to 
heaven,  to  the  right  hand  of  God,  from  whence  He  shall 
come  in  glory  to  judge  both  quick  and  dead.  The 
Lord  Jesus,  then,  was  both  God  and  Man,  uniting,  not 
confounding,  the  two  natures.  He  is  Jehovah,  our  right- 
eousness, and  yet  of  the  human  seed  of  David.^  "  He  is 
God  over  all,"  "  blessed  forever,"  and  yet  "  of  the  fathers 
concerning  the  flesh."  ^     He  is  "  the  mighty  God,"  and 

^  Zech.  viii.  7 ;  Jer.  xxiii.  5 ;  Bom.  i.  3.  ^  Rom.  ix.  5. 


NO    MEDIATOR    REVEALED    BUT    CHRIST.  69 

yet  "  a  child  born  to  us,  a  Son  given."  ^  He  is  "  God 
manifest  in  the  flesh,"  "^  and  this  Word,  which  became 
flesh,  dwelt  among  men,  and  they  saw  His  glory,  as  of 
the  only  begotten  of  the  Father,  full  of  grace  and  truth.' 
But  while  for  us  men,  and  for  our  salvation.  He  came 
down  from  heaven,  and  was  incarnate  by  the  Holy 
Ghost  of  the  Virgin  Mar}^,  He  became,  not  a  man,  but 
MAN  ;  he  took  upon  Him  not  the  narrow,  provincial, 
limited  nature  of  an  individual,  but  our  universal  hu- 
manity, bounded  by  neither  age,  nor  country,  nor  race, 
nor  idiosyncrasy  of  temperament,  but  comprehending 
the  common  nature  of  all  mankind.  Abraham  was  the 
representative  of  the  faithful  of  all  ages  and  classes  and 
climes,  a  host  as  great  and  various  as  the  stars  of 
heaven  ;  and  the  Lord  Jesus,  in  His  incarnation,  took  not 
upon  Him  the  nature  of  angels  but  the  seed  of  Abra- 
ham :  "  Wherefore  in  all  things  it  behoved  Him  to  be 
made  like  unto  His  brethren,  that  He  might  be  a  merci- 
ful and  faithful  high-priest."  ^  In  Him  there  is  "  neither 
Jew  nor  Greek,  there  is  neither  bond  nor  free,  neither 
male  nor  female,"  ^  "  neither  circumcision,  nor  uncircum- 
cision.  Barbarian  or  Scythian  ;  "  ^  "  but  Christ  is  all  and 
in  all."  "  He  was  the  representative  of  no  one  time,  but 
of  all  times ;  of  no  one  school  of  thought,  but  of  all 
schools  ;  of  no  one  phase  of  character,  whether  that  be 
masculine  or  feminine  in  its  type,  but  of  all  phases  ;  ^  of 

1  Is.  ix.  6.  21  Tim.  iii.  16. 

8  John  i.  14.  4  Heb.  ii.  16. 

6  Gal.  iii.  28.  6  Col.  iii.  11. 

7  Col.  iii.  11. 

8  Robertson,  in  commenting  on  the  last  cited  texts,  says :  "  A  human- 
ity in  which  there  is  nothing  distinctive,  limited,  or  peculiar,  but  uni- 
versal, —  your  nature  and  mine,  the  humanity  in  which  we  are  all  broth- 
ers, bond  or  free.  .  .  .  His  nature  had  in  it  the  nature  of  all  nations;  but 
also  His  heart  had  in  it  the  blended  qualities  of  both  sexes.    Our  human 


70  SILENCE    AS    TO    THE    VIRGIN. 

no  one  line  of  religious  obedience,  but  of  all  lines ;  of 
no  one  condition  of  society  or  nationality,  but  of  all  con- 
ditions. Hence  it  was  that  in  the  Apostolic  Church 
characters  so  varied  as  Peter  and  Thomas  and  John, — > 
as  Mary  and  Martha,  on  the  one  side,  and  the  Mag- 
dalene on  the  other  ;  as  the  Roman  officer,  and  the 
Jewish  fisherman,  and  the  Greek  scholar,  found  in  Him 
the  one  God-man  ;  the  very  God  of  very  God,  and 
yet  the  Man  by  whom  humanity  was  to  be  redeemed  ; 
the  Intercessor  for  themselves,  the  one  who,  though 
God,  took  a  nature  common  to  themselves ;  their  own 
Redeemer-kinsman  ;  the  bearer  of  their  particular  bur- 
dens, the  atoner  of  their  own  particular  sins,  the  soother 
of  their  own  particular  grief  Hence  it  is  that  believers 
of  all  temperaments,  degrees  of  culture,  social  rank,  and 
national  characteristics,  find  in  Him  their  Lord  and 
their  God.^ 

ity  is  a  whole  made  up  of  two  opposite  poles  of  character,  —  the  manly 
and  the  feminine.  In  the  character  of  Christ  neither  was  fomid  exclu- 
sively, but  both  in  perfect  balance.  He  was  the  Son  of  Man  —  the  human 
being  —  perfect  man.  There  was  in  Him  the  woman-heart  as  well  as  the 
manly  brain ;  all  that  was  most  manly,  and  all  that  was  most  womanly. 
...  So  long  as  the  male  was  looked  upon  as  the  only  type  of  God,  and 
the  masculine  virtues  as  the  only  glor\'  of  His  character,  so  long  was  the 
truth  unrevealed.  And  so  long  as  Christ  was  only  felt  as  the  Divine 
Man,  and  not  the  Divine  Humanity,  so  long  the  world  had  only  a  one- 
sided truth.  One  half  of  our  nature,  the  sterner  portion  of  it,  only  was 
felt  to  be  of  God  and  in  God.  The  other  half,  the  tenderer  and  purer 
qualities  of  our  soul,  were  felt  as  earthly." — Robertson's  Sei-mons,  2d 
Series,  p.  269. 

The  whole  of  the  very  able  sermon  from  which  the  abore  is  taken, 
bears,  though  from  another  stand-point,  on  the  present  question.  See, 
also,  on  the  full  comprehensiveness  and  universality  of  Christ's  man- 
hood, Bushnell,  Nature  and  the  Supeimatural,  chap.  ix. ;  Bayne's  Testi- 
mony  of  Christ,  p.  126 ;  Ecce  Homo,  chap.  xiv. ;  and  Uhlman,  Die  Siind- 
losigktit  Jesu,  Sechste  Aufiage,  §  228-270,  —  a  book  which,  of  all  others 
on  this  point,  is  the  most  satisfactory. 

1  See  more  fully  on  this  point  Appendix  B. 


SILENCE   GUARDING   CHRIST  S    HUMANITY.  71 

2d.  Let  US  next  notice  the  abuses  of  this  doctrine  to 
which  our  fallen  nature  tends.  To  these  abuses  the 
creeds  serve  as  guides  ;  creeds  and  articles  being,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  not  so  much  formal  and  Systematic 
expositions  of  all  truth,  as  defenses  erected  to  shut  out 
from  the  Visible  Church  those  who  at  any  time  deny 
either  of  the  vital  doctrines  of  the  faith.^  And  in  this 
view,  observe  how  vividly  the  creeds  point  out  to  us 
what  was  the  first  danger  to  which  this  central  truth  of 
the  Incarnation  was  exposed.  St.  John  foreshadows  this 
danger  when  he  writes  :  "  Every  spirit  that  confesseth 
not  that  Jesus  Christ  is  come  i?i  the  fleshy  is  not  of  God ; 
and  this  is  that  spirit  of  Antichrist  whereof  ye  have 
heard  that  it  should  come,  and  even  now  already  is  it 
in  the  world."  2 

It  was  not  the  denial  of  Christ's  divinity,  —  that 
equally  vital  error,  which  will  be  considered  in  the  next 
chapter,  —  but  it  was  a  denial  of  His  blessed  Humanity ; 
and  to  meet  this,  and  this  mainly,  are  the  specifications 
of  the  Apostles'  Creed  turned.  He  was  conceived  by 
the  Holy  Ghost,  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  suffered  under 
Pontius  Pilate,  crucified,  dead  and  buried.  And  what 
this  creed  thus  points  to  us  as  the  earliest  heresy  as  to 
our  Lord's  nature,  is  that  to  repel  which  the  efforts  of  the 
first  Christian  apologists  were  summoned.^  And  the 
tendency  that  was  the  base  of  this  heresy,  and  with 
which  we  are  now  particularly  concerned,  was  one 
which  has  pervaded  all  periods  of  the  world,  and  this 
is,  the  unwillingness  of  the  natural  heart  to  achnit  in  the 
Godhead  those  qualities  of  sympathy^  and  of  te?iderness 

1  Ante,  p.  55.  2  i  John  iv.  3. 

8  See  Wilberforce  On  the  Incarnation,  p.  Ill,  where  the  doctrine  in  this 
relation  is  very  fairly  stated. 


72  SILENCE   AS    TO    THE    VIRGIN. 

towards  man,  which  are  essential  to  a  true  belief  in  the 
incarnation  of  Christ. 

Observe  this  in  the  view  of  the  Lord  most  promi- 
nently brought  forward  by  the  Church  of  Rome.  Re- 
call, for  instance,  that  most  impressive  picture  which,  as 
the  altar-piece  of  the  Sistine  Chapel,  is  spread  before 
the  spectator  in  the  most  conspicuous  and  august  ser- 
vices of  pontifical  worship.  Remember  that,  as  there 
the  Liturgy  is  mainly  in  an  obsolete  tongue,  it  is  by  the 
medium  of  picture  and  gesture  that  doctrine  is  taught ; 
and  then  see  what  is  the  view  of  our  Lord's  character 
that  is  here  set  forth.  Beautiful,  it  is  true,  but  with  the 
beauty  of  an  athlete  ;  with  a  countenance  in  which  this 
beauty,  by  the  most  consummate  artistic  power,  flames 
with  implacable  wrath  ;  with  frame  of  marvelous  mus- 
cular strength,  -as  if  it  were  a  humanity  made  perfect, 
not  to  rescue  but  to  crush ;  with  uplifted  hand  ready  to 
strike  ;  the  incarnation  of  awful  justice  unmingled  with 
a  single  element  of  tenderness  or  compassion  ;  thus  in 
that  extraordinary  picture  is  represented  the  Lord. 
Mercy,  it  is  true,  is  there  exhibited  ;  but  it  is  in  the 
person  of  the  Virgin,  herself  the  exquisite  embodiment 
of  gentle  pity,  yearningly  seeking  to  appease  her  Son's 
wrath.  In  Christ,  even  in  this  His  human  person,  is  ex- 
clusively portrayed  the  idea  of  relentless  justice ;  of 
severe,  inexorable  might ;  while  in  the  Virgin  alone  are 
tenderness  and  mercy  displayed.  And  see  how  this 
same  distinction  pervades  the  Romish  ritual.  The 
finest  and  most  evangelical  of  all  its  hymns  is  the  Dies 
Irce,  but  how  severe  and  frigid  is  the  view  of  the  Re- 
deemer here  set  forth.  There  is  a  plaintive  appeal  to 
Christ's  human  history,  it  is  true,  but  no  cry  of  glorious 
faith  in  His  finished  work ;  the  whole  key  is  that  of  al- 


SILENCE    GUARDING    CHRIST  S    HUMANITY.  73 

most    despair   at   the   suppliant's   sinfulness,   and   the 
Judge's  awful  and   terrible  power. ^     And  with  such  a 

1  The  Protestant  versions  somewhat  lessen  the  august  severity  of  the 

original :  — 

"Dies  irse,  dies  ilia! 
Solvet  eaeclum  in  favillS, 
Teste  David  cum  Sybilla. 

"  Quantus  tremor  est  futurns, 
Quando  Judex  est  venturus, 
Cuncta  stricte  discussurus. 

"  Judex  ergo  cum  sedebit, 
Quidquid  latet,  apparebit : 
Nil  inultum  remanebit." 

And  then,  though  Christ's  mercy  when  on  earth  is  touchingly  appealed 
to,  yet,  even  after  this  most  affecting  of  retrospects,  the  strain  resumes 
and  closes  with  the  original  notes  of  dread  and  gloom :  — 
"  Lacrj-mosa  dies  ilia  I 
Qua  resurget  ex  favilla, 
Judicandus  homo  reus 
Huic  ergo  parce,  Deus !  " 

But  the  heart  cannot  dissociate  the  idea  of  mercy  from  God ;  it  must 
find  an  intercessor;  and  a  natural  sequence  of  this  hard  view  of  redemp- 
tion is  the  investing  of  the  creature  with  mediatorial  power.  "  The  more 
absolute  deification,  if  it  may  be  so  said,  of  Christ ;  the  forgetfulness  of 
His  humanity  induced  by  His  investment  in  a  more  remote  and  awful 
Godhead,  created  a  want  of  some  kindred  and  familiar  object  of  adora- 
tion. The  worship  of  the  intermediate  saints  admitted  that  of  the  Vir- 
gin as  its  least  dangerous,  most  affecting,  most  consolatory'  part."  (Mil- 
man's  Latin  Christianity,  Vol.  I.  p.  205.)  So  is  the  Latin  origin  of  Virgin- 
worship  stated ;  and  the  long  subsequent  development  of  this  culture  in 
nations  of  Teutonic  type  is  thus  traced  to  the  same  cause.  "  Perhaps  as 
the  Teutonic  awe  tended  to  throw  back  into  more  remote  incomprehensi- 
bility the  spiritual  Godhead,  and  therefore  the  more  distinct  human  im- 
age became  more  welcome  to  the  soul,  so  perhaps  the  purer  and  loftier 
Teutonic  respect  for  the  female  sex  was  more  prone  to  tlie  adoration  of 
the  Virgin  mother.  So  completeh'  was  this  worship  the  worship  of  Chris- 
tendom, that  every  cathedral,  almost  everj"  spacious  church,  had  its 
Chapel  of  Our  Lady.  In  the  hymns  to  the  Virgin,  in  everj'  breviarj', 
more  especially  in  her  own  'Hours,'  (the  great  universal  book  of  devo- 
tion,) not  merely  is  the  whole  world  put  under  contribution  for  poetic 


74  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

view  of  Christ,  —  the  tenderness  and  sympathy  of  His 
human  nature  so  lost  sight  of  in  the  splendor  and  majesty 
of  His  divinity,  —  we  cannot  wonder  that  man,  craving 
pity,  and  feeling  that  some  medium  of  pity  must  be 
vouchsafed,  should  seek  for  another  mediator  by  Christ's 
side,  and  that  by  the  Dies  IrcB  the  Stabat  Mater  should 
take  its  place,  and  that  the  Stabat  Mater  should  be  the 
prelude  to  those  multitudinous  prayers  to  the  Virgin 
for  her  intercession,  with  which  the  Romish  breviaries 
abound.  It  was  because  the  human  nature  of  Christ 
was  lost  sight  of  in  His  divine,  that  a  human  mediator 
was  set  up  in  Mary.  It  was  because  men  would  not 
fathom  the  depths  of  divine  pity ;  because  they  shrank 
from  that  wonderful  revelation,  that  God's  Divine  Son 
actually  took  our  humanity  for  us,  and  for  us  bore,  and 
bears  eternally,  a  perfect  human  nature,  —  perfect  in  its 
knowledge,  perfect  in  its  sympathies,  perfect  in  its  in- 
tercessory powers  ;  that,  in  contemplating  His  divine 
person,  they  closed  their  eyes  to  the  human,  seeing  only 
the  One  Divine  Master  and  Judge,  living  in  incommuni- 
cable splendor  and  majesty, — isolated,  awful,  and  severe, 
with  nothing  in  common  with  humanity,  approachable 
only  by  deified  or  canonized  men.  He  ceased  to  be  the 
One  Mediator  between  God  and  man,  and  human  medi- 
ators were  imagined  to  take  His  place.  He  ceased  to  be 
the  One  sole  Intercessor  at  God's  throne,  and  so,  also, 
human  intercessors  were  imagined  in  His  place.  He 
ceased  to  be  the  One  eternal  High-priest,  and  human 

images,  (but)  a  new  vocabulary  is  invented  to  express  yet  inexpressible 
homage ;  pages  follow  pages  of  glowing  similitudes,  rising  one  above 
another.  In  the  Psalter  of  the  Virgin  almost  all  the  incommunicable  at- 
tributes of  the  Godhead  are  assigned  to  her ;  she  commands  by  her  nat- 
ural influences,  if  not  by  authority,  her  eternal  Son."  —  Milman's  Latin 
Christianity,  Vol.  VIII.  pp.  20&-208. 


SILENCE   GUARDING   CHRIST  S    HUMANITY.  75 

priests  in  His  place  offered  the  sacrifice  and  made  atone- 
ment for  sin.  No  longer  the  One  sole  Divine  Sympathizer 
with  human  griefs  and  Remitter  of  human  transgressions, 
in  His  place  the  confessional  has  poured  into  it  the 
burden  of  the  broken  heart,  and  from  the  confessional 
the  edict  of  forgiveness  goes  forth.  And  when  we  trace 
these  heresies  to  the  one  fundamental  error  of  bringing 
despite  on  the  cross  of  Christ  by  denying  that  very 
nature  which  that  cross  bore,  we  can  understand  the 
awfulness  of  that  Silence  of  Scripture,  which,  equally 
with  Scripture's  language,  leads  our  love,  our  reverence, 
our  faith,  all  to  converge  to  the  one  Incarnate  Son. 
We  no  longer  wonder  that  all  other  objects  are  thus 
screened  off  from  our  view  ;  and  that  as  the  One  Inter- 
cessor, the  One  Mediator  between  God  and  man,  the 
sole  High-priest,  we  see  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  We 
are  thus,  as  it  were,  left  alone  with  Him  as  our  sole 
Mediator  and  Priest.  All  other  spiritual  existences  in 
this  work  of  intercession  and  sacrifice,  are  shut  out  from 
us.  And  the  Silence  and  the  Screen  unite  in  saying  to 
us,  —  "  This  is  My  beloved  Son  :  hear  ye  Him." 

3d.  Our  sole  Mediator  and  High-priest,  then,  is  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who,  while  the  eternal  Son  of  God, 
of  one  substance  and  equal  with  the  Father,  was  and 
continues  to  be  God  and  man,  in  two  distinct  natures, 
and  one  person,  forever.  Neither  of  these  natures  can 
be  veiled  without  peril  to  the  Christian  faith  ;  each  is 
brought  out  before  us  in  fulness  by  Revelation's  shadows 
as  well  as  its  light ;  each  has  its  own  particular  meaning 
and  force  and  consolation  to  the  devout  heart.  Of  the 
practical  relation  to  us  of  our  Lord's  Divine  Nature,  I 
shall  speak  in  the  following  chapter  :  to  the  practical 
bearings  of  His  human  nature,  I  now  turn. 


76  LESSONS    FROM   CHRIST's    HUMANITY. 

—  The  Lord  Jesus  became  man  that  for  us  He  might 
obey  the  law,  and  suffer  for  us,  offering  a  perfect  and 
sufficient  oblation  and  satisfaction  for  our  sins ;  He 
who  was  sinless  becoming  sin  for  us  that  we  might  be- 
come the  righteousness  of  God  through  Him.  Hence 
it  is  no  imperfect  justification  that  the  believer  pleads 
as  his  title  to  heaven  ;  it  is  no  inner  work  of  his  own ; 
it  is  the  fbll,  perfect,  and  sufficient  merits  and  suffering 
of  the  God-man. 

—  The  Lord  Jesus  became  man  that  our  fallen  and 
ruined  nature  might  be  lifted  from  its  curse,  and  in 
Him,  the  one  representative  man,  restored.  His  very 
incarnation  made  this  earth  the  most  glorious  of  orbs, 
for  it  was  here  that  He  condescended  bodily  to  dwell. 
And  if  so  with  the  earth  which  was  His  abode,  how 
much  more  so  with  the  human  nature  that  He  accepted 
as  His  own  !  "  /  was  sick  and  in  prison,"  —  I  bore  even 
the  infirmities  of  this  nature  ;  in  some  sense  all  this 
nature,  wherever  it  exists,  was  accepted  by  Me.  Who 
can  scorn,  then,  a  fellow-creature,  when  it  is  remem- 
bered that  it  was  that  fellow-creature's  nature  in  which 
the  Lord  abode  !  It  is  a  temple  which  may  be  dese- 
crated, but  it  is  a  temple  in  which  the  Lord  came  to 
dwell.  And  how  should  each  of  us  detest  those  sins 
by  which  this  nature  is  debased.  We  are  not  only 
redeemed  by  His  blood,  but  this  nature  we  bear  was 
lifted  from  ruin  by  His  incarnation.  Woe  be  to  us  if 
we  by  our  sin  drag  it  back  to  that  ruin,  to  rescue  us 
from  which  He  paid  such  a  price. 

—  The  Lord  Jesus  became  man  that  in  our  nature 
He  might  make  intercession  for  us  at  God's  right  hand. 
He  is  a  true  Ambassador  from  our  earthly  courts,  speak- 
ing our  language,  trained  in  our  discipline,  bearing  with 


LESSONS    FROM   CHRISt's    HUMANITY.  77 

Him  our  burden.  It  may  be  that  intercession  belongs 
not  to  divinity,  as  divinity ;  and  what  is  revealed  to  us 
is,  that  the  Lord  Jesus  took  our  nature  in  order  that  He 
might  be  our  just  and  merciful  High-priest.  Divinity, 
as  such,  would  have  had  a  perfect  knowledge  of  our 
infirmities  and  sorrows  and  temptations ;  but  no  one 
could  know  them  personally  who  did  not  feel  them  ;  no 
one  share  their  burden  but  one  who  bore  them  as  did 
the  Lord  Christ.  "  He  was  touched,"  says  the  Apostle, 
"with  the  feeling  of  our  infirmities,  having  been  in  all 
points  tempted  as  we  are,  yet  without  sin."  ^  Ever 
with  us,  we  can  at  all  times  and  in  all  places,  in  every 
temptation,  sorrow,  and  infirmity,  receive  His  sympathy 
and  aid.  Would  that  our  spiritual  blindness  could  be 
removed,  and  that  in  all  our  trials  and  adversities  we 
could  be  both  strengthened  and  kept  from  sin  by  seeing 
Him,  our  all-powerful,  all-sympathizing  High-priest,  by 
our  side ! 

—  And  the  Lord  Jesus  became  man  that  we  might 
partake  of  His  Divine  blessedness,  as  children  and  co- 
heirs of  the  glory  that  is  His.  He  was  made  of  a 
woman,  and  made  under  the  law,  not  only  that  "He 
might  redeem  them  that  were  under  the  law,"  but  that 
"  we  might  receive  the  adoption  of  sons  j  "  ^  and  "  come 
boldly  to  the  throne  of  grace."  ^  Christ  has  taken  our 
very  nature  Himself  to  His  throne  ;  Christ  being  heir 
of  all  things.  His  people,  in  Him,  are  "  heirs  of  God, 
and  joint  heirs  with  Christ."  '*  We  are  His  very  mem- 
bers, incorporate  in  His  mystical  body ;  we  are  inher- 
itors of  His  kingdom  of  heaven.  And,  believing  thus, 
what  manner  of  men  should  we  be  !     How  should  we 

1  Heb.  iv.  15.    See^«<,  Appendix  B.  2  Qal.  iv.  5. 

»  Heb.  iv.  16.  *  Rom.  vul.  17. 


78  CHRIST,    THE    GOD-MAN. 

hate  that  sin  by  which  our  inheritance  was  once  for- 
feited ;  which  now,  if  we  become  its  slave,  will  drag  us 
from  this  glorious  future  to  the  regions  of  the  lost ! 
How  should  the  King's  children,  how  should  those  re- 
deemed at  such  a  precious  price,  shrink  from  that  which 
would  soil  their  glorious  robes,  and  bring  dishonor  on 
their  beloved  Lord  !  And  how  gravely  should  those  who 
reject  the  oifer  of  Christ  consider  what  is  the  destiny 
they  thus  accept.  Sin,  in  all  its  pollution  and  degrada- 
tion and  unhappiness,  might  have  taught  them  this  ;  but 
if  sin  did  not  teach  them  their  danger,  they  must  see  it 
in  the  incarnation  of  Christ.  For  them  He  lived  and 
suffered  as  a  Man.  His  condescension  and  His  passion 
are  the  standard  of  the  ruin  He  would  avert.  It  is  3-S 
if  the  grandeur  of  the  Godhead  was  the  measure  of  the 
wretchedness  of  sin ;  the  height  of  heaven,  of  the 
depth  of  hell.  And  the  love  of  God  manifest  in  the 
flesh,  therefore,  while  it  calls  the  believer  to  a  higher 
sanctity  and  purer  holiness,  speaks  with  tremendous 
meaning  to  the  sinner  who  rejects  the  proffered  sonship 
of  God. 

Before  Him,  then,  the  Lord  Jesus,  Perfect  God  and 
Perfect  Man,  let  us  bow  ;  imploring  from  Him  holi- 
ness if  we  have  received  this  adoption  ;  imploring  from 
Him  sonship  if  we  are  still  aliens  to  the  kingdom  of 
His  grace.  He  is  the  One  Saviour  of  our  souls,  and 
beside  Him  there  is  none  else.  And  to  Him,  she  who 
was  in  her  humanity  nearest  to  Him  of  all  his  people 
thus  leads.  She,  His  human  mother ;  she,  the  chosen 
handmaid  of  the  Lord  ;  she,  to  be  ever  blessed  among 
women  ;  if  we  seek  her,  she  turns  from  us  as  if  simply 
with  the  words,  This  is  my  Son;    whatsoever  He 


SILENCE   AS    TO    THE   VIRGIN.  79 

SAITH  UNTO  THEE,  DO  ;  claiming  for  Him  that  humanity 
which  makes  Him  our  fellow  in  all  that  concerns  our 
griefs  and  temptations,  but  obscuring  herself  before  His 
Divinity  as  one  who  was  only  to  be  saved,  like  us,  by 
His  unmerited  grace.  The  veil  is  lifted  about  her  in 
all  that  concerns  this  her  motherhood,  —  in  all  that 
through  her  brings  out  the  true  humanity  of  His  nature ; 
the  veil  is  dropped  when  this  office  is  closed,  and  the 
Magnificat  sung,  and  Christ,  the  Son  of  Man,  is  shown 
as  such  by  her.  His  mother,  to  men.  Then  the  shadows 
fall  on  either  side,  and  before  us,  and  alone,  is  the 
One  Mediator  between  God  and  man,  the  Man  Christ 
Jesus. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE    lord's    personal   APPEARANCE,    AND    ITS    RELA- 
TIONS. 

I  CLOSE  with  a  topic  on  which  the  silence  of  the 
evangelical  historians  strikes  me  as  peculiarly  touch- 
ing and  impressive.  When  we  lose  a  dear  friend,  one 
of  our  first  objects  is  sacredly  to  set  apart  for  preserva- 
tion memorials  of  his  person,  or  portraits  by  which  his 
appearance  may  be  recalled.  If  his  life  be  written,  with 
what  tenderness  are  his  features  described  ;  and  how 
carefully  is  the  date  of  his  birth,  and  of  the  main  inci- 
dents of  his  life,  recorded.  Precisely  as  our  love  to  him 
grows,  do  we  dwell  on  whatever  will  keep  his  memory  in 
all  its  living  loveliness  before  our  mind.  In  the  whole 
range  of  human  biography,  I  do  not  know  of  a  case  in 
which,  when  a  life  has  been  written  by  friends  and  disci- 
ples under  the  influence  of  affection  and  reverence,  such 
materials  as  these  are  not  affectionately  and  sedulously 
invoked  ^  —  "  This  day  the  Master  was  born ;  and  so  he 
looked  and  spoke."  The  writer's  affection  yearns  over 
these  things  ;  the  interest  of  the  reader  calls  for  them  as 
forming  a  chief  part  of  the  agencies  by  which  the  lost 
is  to  be  recalled. 

1  As  an  illustration  of  this  may  be  mentioned  Dr.  Sprague's  Annals 
of  the  American  Pulpit.  Here  is  a  collection  of  several  hundred  biog- 
raphies of  religious  teachers,  mostly  by  their  pupils  and  friends ;  and  in 
each  of  these,  when  thus  contemporaneous,  the  personal  appearance  of  the 
person  commemorated,  and  the  main  dates  of  his  life,  are  points  on  which 
the  biographer  most  tenderly  dwells. 


THE  LORDS  PERSONAL  APPEARANCE.       8 1 

And  yet,  instinctive  as  is  the  impulse  to  impart  such 
information  in  those  who  seek  to  commemorate  a  be- 
loved leader  and  friend,  —  universally  as  we  find  such  in- 
formation imparted  in  such  cases,  —  we  notice  on  this 
topic  an  almost  entire  silence  in  the  history  given  us  of 
our  blessed  Lord.  The  day  of  His  birth  is  left  undeter- 
mined. No  epoch  of  his  life,  except  that  of  His  Passion, 
Resurrection,  and  Ascension,  is  so  designated  that  its  pre- 
cise anniversar}'  may  be  commemorated.^  We  hear  of 
no  relics  connected  with  His  Divine  Person  being  pre- 
served. And  of  His  personal  appearance,  not  one  word 
of  description  is  given.  The  character  of  His  features, 
the  tone  of  His  voice.  His  general  bearing,  —  much 
as  we  might  desire  to  know  what  these  were,  —  before 
them  we  find  an  impenetrable  veil  interposed.  Old  Tes- 
tament prophecies,  indeed,  speak  of  Him  in  this  rela- 
tion; but  when  we  learn  that  there  was  no  form  or 
comeliness  in  Him,  we  know  not  whether  this  refers  to 
the  want  of  pomp  and  state  by  which  His  human  ad- 
vent was  marked,  or  whether  it  was  ever  accepted  by 
the  evangelical  historians  as  applying  to  Him  as  He 
bodily  walked  among  men.-  Unlike  all  other  biogra- 
phies ever  written,  these  are  silent  on  those  very  points 
on  which  affectionate  memory  would  be  most  likely  to 
dwell. 

To  what,  then,  is  this  silence  to  be  traced  ?  Certainly 
not,  we  will  at  once  say,  to  any  want  of  attachment  on 

1  This  seems  to  have  been  the  line  drawn  by  the  early  Church.  Nean- 
der's  Church  History,  Vol.  XIII.  p.  406.  According  to  Chrv'sostom,  Christ- 
mas only  came  into  observance  about  385.  Augustine  speaks  of  Good 
Friday,  Easter,  the  Ascension,  and  Whitsunday,  as  being  in  his  day  uni- 
versally obser\-ed;  but  of  Christmas,  as  then  only  beginning  to  be  specifi- 
cally set  apart.    Aug.  Ep.  ad  Januar. ;  Ep.  ad  Gal.  lib.  214. 

2  See  Appendix  C. 


82  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

the  part  of  the  sacred  biographers  to  their  ascended 
Master  and  Lord.  They  encountered,  in  the  publication 
of  His  gospel,  contempt,  persecution,  and  death.  The 
love  they  felt  for  Him  when  living,  so  far  from  being 
abated  by  His  death,  was  augmented  to  a  devotion 
which  formed  the  controlling  principle  of  their  lives. 
Others,  when  there  was  still  an  uncertain  future,  have 
been  loyal  to  a  martyred  chief ;  but  the  disciples  main- 
tained the  same  dauntless  devotion  not  merely  in  the 
face  of  the  bitterest  obloquy,  but  when  the  Holy  Ghost 
witnessed  in  their  hearts  that  bonds  and  death  awaited 
them  wherever  they  might  go.  And  this  devotion  con- 
tained those  elements  which  must  have  led  them  to  in- 
dulge in  constant  retrospect  on  that  beloved  life, — 
"  Remember  the  words  of  the  Lord  Jesus ;  "  "  The  Lord 
Jesus,  on  the  night  in  which  He  was  betrayed,"  —  such 
was  the  authority  to  which  they  constantly  appealed. 
Theirs  was  the  personal  love  which  was  due  to  a  beloved 
friend  who  had  laid  down  for  them  His  life.  Theirs 
was  the  veneration  due  to  a  holy  teacher,  and  the 
adoration  to  an  ascended  God.  "  The  love  of  Christ 
constraineth  us  ;  "  *  "  We  love  Him  because  He  first 
loved  us  j  "  ^  "  Unto  Him  who  loved  us  and  washed  us 
from  our  sins,  be  glory  and  dominion  forever ; "  ^  these 
were  not  merely  their  instinctive  cries,  but  displayed  the 
motive  power  by  which  their  whole  action  was  inspired. 
In  the  whole  range  of  history,  there  are  no  instances 
of  devotion  to  a  departed  Master  so  heroic,  so  tender, 
so  unfading,  as  that  shown  by  the  disciples  to  their  as- 
cended Lord. 

Nor  can  this  silence  be  attributed  to  any  general  want 
of  circumstantiality  in  the  sacred    historians.     On   the 
1  2  Cor.  V.  14.  2  1  John  v.  19.  8  Rev.  i.  5. 


THE    lord's    personal   APPEARANCE.  83 

contrary,  this  circumstantiality  —  vivid,  discursive,  and 
minute  —  distinguishes  them  to  a  degree  ahnost  unpar- 
alleled. Each  of  them,  from  his  own  stand-point,  no- 
tices just  those  collateral  points  which  would  strike  an 
observer  of  his  particular  temperament,  and  then  inci- 
dentally touches  on  what  he  thus  notices,  with  a  natu- 
ralness which  is  one  of  the  strongest  proofs  of  the  au- 
thenticity of  the  text.  Take,  for  instance,  the  case  of 
St.  Mark.  "  The  details  point  clearly  to  the  impression 
produced  on  an  eye-witness,  and  are  not  such  as  would 
suggest  themselves  to  the  imagination  of  a  chronicler. 
At  one  time  we  find  a  minute  touch  which  places  the 
whole  scene  before  us  ;  at  another  time,  an  accessory 
circumstance,  such  as  often  fixes  itself  on  the  mind, 
without  appearing  at  first  sight  to  possess  any  special 
interest ;  now  there  is  a  phrase  which  preserves  some 
trait  of  the  Saviour's  tenderness,  or  some  expressive 
term  of  His  language."^  As  to  the  scenery  about  our 
Lord  ;  as  to  the  persons  who  met  Him  ;  as  to  His  own 
journeys  and  discourses,  details  are  profusely  scattered 
over  almost  every  page  :  circumstantial  reference  is  the 
rule  ;  severe  narrative  the  exception.  The  avoidance  of 
a  topic  so  interesting  as  that  before  us,  cannot  be  ac- 
counted for  by  a  desire  on  the  part  of  the  historians  to 
avoid  descriptive  detail. 

Nor,  once  more,  can  we  trace  this  silence  to  any  scant- 
iness of  personal  associations.  Mary,  who  watched  over 
His  infancy,  was  in  her  turn  watched  over  by  St.  John, 
with  whom  she  dwelt ;  yet  how  few  are  the  incidents  of 
that  divine  childhood  which  were  preserved.  St.  Mat- 
thew could  not  but  recall  the  Master's  appearance,  either 
when  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  was  spoken,  when  above 
1  Westcott's  Introduction^  p.  365. 


84  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

flitted  the  fowls  of  the  air,  and  about  glistened  the  lilies 
of  the  field,  —  or,  when  he,  Matthew,  was  called  from  the 
receipt  of  customs  to  the  Apostleship,  and  gave  a  great 
feast  to  which  the  Master  came.  St.  Peter,  whether 
speaking  or  writing,  could  never  have  forgotten  the 
Lord's  face,  as  he  turned  and  looked  on  him  ;  nor  that 
solemn  interview  when  the  commission  was  given  him, 
"  Feed  my  sheep."  St.  John,  whenever  he  wrote,  could 
scarcely  recall  a  scene  in  which  that  Divine  presence  did 
not  reappear  :  Jesus  by  the  Jordan's  side  ;  Jesus  at  Laz- 
arus's  grave  ;  Jesus  at  the  last  supper  ;  Jesus  at  the  cross  ; 
Jesus  uttering  those  final  words,  —  "  If  I  will  that  he 
tarry  till  I  come,  what  is  that  to  thee  ? "  And  indeed 
this  presence  was  constantly  before  the  beloved  disci- 
ple whenever  he  spoke  or  wrote,  — "  We  beheld  his 
glory,  the  glory  of  the  only-begotten  of  the  Father,"  — 
such  is  part  of  the  introduction  to  his  gospel,  —  "  full  of 
grace  and  truth."  ^  "  That  which  was  from  the  begin- 
ning, which  we  have  seen  with  our  eyes,  which  we  looked 
upon,  and  our  hands  have  handled  ;  "  so  his  first  epistle 
general  begins.  "I  beheld  one  like  unto  the  Son  of 
Man ; "  ^  such  is  the  recollection  by  which  he  assures 
himself  that  the  Lord  of  the  Apocalypse  was  the  Master 
whom  he  had  seen  and  loved  in  the  flesh.  But  here  the 
historian's  lips  become  mute.  Much,  indeed,  must  those 
to  whom  in  his  old  age  he  spoke  —  those  who  had  not 
themselves  seen  the  Lord  —  have  clung  to  him  as  the 
last  link  between  the  immediate  disciples  and  the 
Church,  which,  though  not  seeing,  was  to  love.  Yet, 
however  full  may  have  been  his  communications, — 
whatever  may  have  been  the  unrecorded  teachings  of 
the  other  disciples,  —  it  was  the  divine  will  that  on  this, 

1  John  i.  U.  2  Rev.  xiv.  14. 


THE    lord's    personal   APPEARANCE.  85 

the  personal  appearance  of  our  blessed  Lord,  the  sacred 
text  should  keep  silence  ;  that  of  the  days  of  His  birth, 
and  of  the  main  epochs  of  His  life,  with  the  exception 
of  His  Passion,  Resurrection,  and  Ascension,  there 
should  be  no  record  ;  that  no  relics  should  be  referred 
to  or  individuated  as  in  any  way  connected  with  His  sa- 
cred person,  and  that  the  memorials  of  His  infancy 
should  be  meagre  and  slight.  To  the  meaning  of  a 
silence  so  emphatic,  —  so  antecedently  improbable  when 
we  remember  the  tender  love  the  inspired  historians 
bore  to  Him  whose  life  they  wrote,  so  unparalleled  in 
the  range  of  contemporaneous  biography,  —  let  us  now 
turn  our  thoughts. 

In  the  last  chapter,  I  referred  to  the  silence  of  the 
New  Testament  as  to  the  Virgin  Mary,  as  one  of  those 
screens  which  are  so  placed  by  Divine  Wisdom  as  to 
shut  off  our  wandering  minds  from  other  and  false  ob- 
jects of  worship,  and  to  confine  them  to  the  Lord  Je- 
sus, and  to  Him  alone.  "  There  is  One  Mediator  be- 
tween God  and  Man,  the  man  Christ  Jesus."  ^  "  This 
is  My  beloved  Son,  hear  ye  Him  ; "  such  was  the  com- 
mand given  to  the  disciples  on  the  Mount  of  Transfig- 
uration, when  they  sought  to  detain  Moses  and  Elias,  as 
objects  of  veneration  jointly  with  Christ ;  and  "  when 
they  had  lifted  up  their  eyes,  they  saw  no  man,  save 
Jesus  only."  ^  So  God  veils  from  us  whatever  would 
withdraw  us  from  the  worship  of  His  beloved  Son,  as 
the  one  God-man  ;  our  sole  Mediator,  Intercessor,  and 
Priest.  I  showed,  when  speaking  of  the  veil  thus  in- 
terposed between  us  and  the  Virgin  and  God's  other 
glorified  saints,  how  merciful  was  such  a  dispensation, 
in  view  of  the  tendency  of  the  natural  heart  to  exclude 
1  1  Tim.  li.  5.  i  Matt.  xvii.  8. 


86  SILENCE   GUARDING    CHRIST'S    DIVINITY. 

from  its  idea  of  the  Godhead  those  qualities  of  sympa- 
thy and  of  tenderness  toward  man,  the  recognition  of 
which  is  essential  to  a  true  belief  in  the  incarnation  of 
Christ ;  and  I  noticed  how  this  tendency  had  shown 
itself  in  the  post- Apostolic  Church,  in  the  obscuring  of 
the  Lord's  human  nature,  and  in  the  seeking  out,  in- 
stead of  Him,  of  mediators  in  the  person  of  the  Virgin 
and  saints.  And  now,  of  another  tendency  we  have  to 
speak,  that  tendency  to  materialize  and  localize  God, 
against  which  the  silence  we  are  now  considering  is  ex- 
pressly pointed  by  the  sacred  text.  "  It  is  expedient 
for  you  that  I  go  away ;  for  if  I  go  not  away,  the 
Comforter  will  not  come  ;  "  ^  so  spoke  our  blessed  Lord 
when  sorrow  filled  His  disciples'  hearts  that  they  could 
no  longer  detain  Him  in  the  body  as  a  personal  associ- 
ate and  friend.  "  Touch  me  not ;  "  so  He  said  to  Mary 
when  she  sought  to  hold  Him  as  if  in  bodily  connection 
with  His  Church.2  Christ  "  died  for  all,"  so  declared 
St.  Paul,  "  that  they  which  live  should  not  henceforth 
live  unto  themselves  but  unto  Hii7i  which  died  for  them 
and  rose  again  ;  wherefore  henceforth  know  we  no  man 
after  the  flesh ;  yea,  though  we  have  known  Christ  after 
the  flesh,  yet  now  henceforth  k?iow  we  him  no  more. 
Therefore  if  any  man  be  in  Christ,  he  is  a  new  creature  ; 
old  things  are  passed  away ;  behold,  all  things  are  be- 
come new.  And  all  things  are  of  God,  who  hath  rec- 
onciled us  to  Himself  by  Christ  Jesus,  and  hath  given 
us  the  ministry  of  reconciliation  ;  to  wit,  that  God  was 
in  Christ,  reconciling  the  world  tmto  himself y  ^  God  the 
Omnipresent  is  in  Him  ;  reconciling  the  whole  world  to 
Himself  He  is  to  be  worshiped,  as  was  seen  in  the 
last  chapter,  as  the  sole  Mediator  ;  but  the  very  silence 
1  John  xvi.  7.  2  John  xx.  17.  3  2  Cor.  v.  15-19. 


THE  lord's  personal  APPEARANCE.        87 

of  which  we  now  speak,  hiding  from  us  all  that  would 
lead  us  to  localize  Him  in  relic,  or  image,  or  epoch, 
shows  us  that  He  is  also  to  be  worshiped  as  the  one 
Omnipresent  God.  This  thought  I  now  purpose  to  ex- 
pand. 

First,  then,  observe  how  deeply  seated  is  this  tendency 
to  localize  and  materialize  the  Divine.  We  see  it  exhib- 
ited in  the  idolatrous  tendencies  of  Jew  as  well  as  of 
Gentile  ;  and  we  see  it  soon  manifesting  itself  in  the 
Christian  Church,  notwithstanding  the  prohibitions  of 
the  Decalogue  ;  notsvithstanding  our  Lord's  emphatic 
declaration  that  "  God  is  a  Spirit,  and  they  that  wor- 
ship Him  must  worship  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth  ; "  ^ 
notwithstanding  the  doctrine  set  forth  in  His  last  dis- 
course that  the  dispensation  of  grace  was  to  be  a  dis- 
pensation of  the  Holy  Spirit,  from  which  the  visible 
presence  of  the  Redeemer  was  to  be  withdrawn ;  and 
notwithstanding  the  constant  warnings  and  injunctions 
of  the  Apostolic  epistles. 

Observe  this  as  to  epochs  a?id  anniversaries.  "  Ye 
observe  days,  and  months,  and  times,  and  years,"  writes 
St.  Paul  to  the  Gatatians ;  "I  am  afraid  of  you,  lest  I 
have  bestowed  on  you  labor  in  vain."  ^  And  so  widely 
has  this  tendency  operated,  that  in  the  Church  of 
Rome,  exclusive  of  saints'  days,  there  are  now  seventy- 
four  distinct  festivals  prescribed,  of  which  sez'e/i  are  in 
honor  of  the  Lord  and  seventeen  of  the  Virgin.  There 
is  a  serious  difficulty  in  the  way  of  such  a  system,  arising 
from  its  interference  with  the  duty  of  labor  ;  the  divine 
command,*  and  the  social  obligation,  being  in  like  man- 
ner abrogated.     But  the  spiritual  consequences  are  still 

1  John  iv.  2-i.  2  GaL  iv.  10. 

8  "  Six  days  shalt  thou  labor." 


88  SILENCE    GUARDING    CHRIST's    DIVINITY. 

more  perilous.  Specific  indulgences  are  attached  to  wor- 
ship on  those  days,  and  while  they  are  consecrated,  other 
portions  of  the  year  are  supposed  to  be  withdrawn  from 
any  sacred  influence  or  susceptibility.  God  is  localized 
in  these  epochs,  and  dissociated  from  days  not  thus  con- 
secrated. 

So,  also,  with  relics  and  images.  When,  in  the  Old 
Testament  Church,  it  was  found  that  the  Brazen  Serpent, 
the  most  sacred  visible  type  of  our  blessed  Lord,  was 
retained  for  veneration,  it  was  destroyed  by  King  Hez- 
ekiah,  who,  we  are  told,  "  did  that  which  was  right  in  the 
sight  of  the  Lord."  ^  In  the  New  Testament,  no  de- 
scription of  our  Lord  is  given,  and  no  relic,  as  connected 
with  His  Divine  Person,  is  referred  to  as  retained  by  the 
subsequent  Church  ;  and  yet,  in  face  of  this,  —  in  face  of 
the  wall  thus  erected  between  us  and  all  such  objects  of 
adoration,  —  in  face  of  the  solemn  warnings  against  idola- 
try and  declarations  of  the  Divine  Invisibility,  relics  and 
images  came  to  be  regarded  as  the  represejitatives  not 
merely  of  the  Lord  Himself,  but  of  His  saints,  script- 
ural and  unscriptural.  The  Spiritual  thus  represented 
was  lost  sight  of  in  the  Material  in  which  it  was  sup- 
posed to  be  embodied.  The  Invisible  was  absorbed  in 
the  Visible ;  and  divine  gifts  were  supposed  to  stream, 
not  from  the  Invisible  and  Omnipresent  God,  but  from 
picture  or  relic  which  was  His  symbol.  Where  the  im- 
age or  relic  was,  there  was  God,  or  His  Son,  or  one  of 
His  canonized  saints ;  and  image  or  relic  was  carried  in 
procession  to  stay  the  plague,  or  extinguish  the  fire,  or 
repel  the  foe.'^    The  distinction  between  reverence  and 

1  2  Kings  xviii.  1-4. 

2  See  Milman's  Latin  Christianity,  Vol.  II.  p.  299.  Pope  Gregory  II.  de- 
fends this  in  his  letter  to  the  Emperor  Leo.  •'  Where  the  body  is,  says  our 
Lord,  there  will  the  eagles  be  gathered  together.    The  body  is  Christ;  the 


SILENCE    AS    TO    EPOCHS    AND    SHRINES.  89 

worship  was  soon  lost  sight  of;  the  vulgar  adored  relic 
and  image  ;  the  philosophic,  unable  thus  to  localize  that 
which  could  only  exist  as  Omnipresent  and  Invisible, 
too  often  ceased  to  worship  at  all. 

So,  again,  with  regard  to  shrines.  "  The  hour  com- 
eth,"  said  the  Lord,  "  when  ye  shall  neither  in  this 
mountain,  nor  yet  in  Jerusalem,  worship  the  Father. 
But  the  hour  cometh,  and  now  is,  when  the  true  wor- 
shipers shall  worship  the  Father  in  spirit  and  in  truth."  ^ 
"  The  Most  High,"  cried  St.  Stephen,  "  dwelleth  not 
in  temples  made  with  hands." ^  "I  will,  therefore," 
wrote  St.  Paul,  "that  men  pray  everywhere,  lifting  up 
holy  hands."  ^  But  these  teachings  the  corrupted 
Church  reversed.  Not  merely  was  God  to  be  sought 
in  the  visible  temple,  but  there  was  a  portion  of  that 
temple  where  He  corporeally  dwelt,  and  to  which  all 
worship  was  to  be  turned.  From  this,  the  earliest  su- 
perstition, the  idea  seemed  to  grow  up  that  the  Divine 
Nature,  no  longer  omnipresent,  was  divided  into  a  series 
of  radiating  centres,  of  greater  or  less  splendor,  by  con- 
tact with  which  alone  the  flame  of  individual  devotion 
could  be  kindled,  or  the  spark  of  grace  received. 

What  were  the  consequences  of  this  localization 
and  materialization  of  God,  the  history  of  the  Church 
has  but  too  abundantly  shown.  God  thus  localized  and 
limited,  ceased  to  be,  in  the  eyes  of  multitudes,  an 
All-seeing,  All-directing,    All-avenging  God.     Religion 

eagles,  the  religious  men  who  flew  from  all  quarters  to  behold  Him. 
When  they  beheld  Him,  they  made  a  picture  of  Him.  Not  of  Him  alone: 
they  made  pictures  of  James,  the  brother  of  the  Lord;  of  Stephen,  and  of 
all  the  martyrs;  and  so,  having  done,  they  disseminated  them  through- 
out the  world,  to  receive,  not  worship,  but  reverence."  Milman's  Laixn 
ChristiQTiity,  Vol.  II.  p.  313. 

1  John  iv.  21-23.  2  Acts  viii.  48.  8  1  Tim.  ii.  8. 


90  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

became  a  sort  of  magic :  "  Resort   to  the  consecrated 

relic  or  shrine,  touch  and  adore,  and  all  will  be  cleansed." 

Common  life  was  desecrated  by  this  concentration  of 

all  Divine  influence  in  epoch,  or  relic,  or  temple. 

"  We  travel  far  to  find  Him,  seeking  still, 
Often  in  weariness,  to  reach  his  shrine, 
Ready  our  choicest  treasures  to  resign. 
He,  in  our  daily  homes,  lays  down  the  line,  — 
'  Do  here  My  will.'  " 

So  even  the  most  devout  would  cry,  striving  to  recon- 
cile this  localization  of  God  with  the  consciousness  that 
if  He  be  to  them  a  God  of  guidance  and  of  peace.  He 
was  to  be  present  with  them  in  their  hearts  and  homes. 
To  them  it  was  a  painful  religion  of  works,  in  constant 
conflict  with  the  benignity  and  freedom  of  gospel 
grace.  But  the  undevout,  unrestrained  by  any  sense 
of  religious  accountability  in  their  every-day  life,  took 
refuge,  when  alarmed,  in  shrine  or  relic,  and  there,  the 
purgation  being  accomplished,  returned  to  a  fresh  career 
of  impiety  and  sin.-^ 

1  I  know  no  more  vivid  illustration  of  this  than  the  circumstances  at- 
tending the  death  of  the  Dauphin,  the  son  of  Louis  XIV.,  as  related  by 
Saint  Simon,  an  annalist  in  perfect  religious  sympathy  with  the  whole 
system,  and  therefore  by  no  means  disposed  to  narrate  its  workings  ex- 
cept with  accuracy  and  respect. 

The  Dauphin,  who  Avas  notoriously  profligate  in  his  private  life,  as  the 
annalist  very  circumstantially  narrates,  was  passing  one  day  through  the 
streets,  when  he  "  met  Our  Lord  on  His  way  to  a  sick  man;  '■  this  being 
the  expression  used  by  Saint  Simon  to  denote  the  carrying  of  the  conse- 
crated elements  to  the  sick.  Upon  this  the  Dauphin  kneeled,  as  was 
customary,  to  adore  the  Host.  Subsequently,  however,  he  inquired  what 
ailed  the  sick  person  to  be  thus  visited,  and  on  being  informed  it  was  the 
small-pox,  he  was  struck  down  with  terror,  and  was  shortly  afterwards 
attacked  by  the  same  disease,  of  which  he  had  always  lived  in  the  most 
abject  fear.  He  died,  continuing,  however,  his  profligate  relations  to  the 
last.  Here  we  have  brought  out  in  tragic  prominence,  the  union  between 
a  profligacy  which  was  the  ruling  habit  of  life,  and  a  religion  which  was 


CHRIST    NOT    MERELY   AN    EXAMPLE.  9I 

But,  when  we  speak  of  this  localization  of  Christ,  — 
this  veiling  up  of  His  Divine  Nature,  and  viewing  Him 
solely  in  certain  limited,  human,  material  relations,  in 
which  He  is  supposed  exclusively  to  reside,  —  is  there 
not  an  analogous  temptation  to  which,  while  avoiding 
any  thing  like  materialistic  idolatry,  we  are  too  much 
disposed  to  yield  ?  Relics  we  do  not  retain  ;  in  shrine 
we  may  not  believe  the  Infinite  Saviour  to  corporeally 
reside  ;  but  is  there  not  a  tendency  to  contemplate  Him 
in  the  modes  and  dealings  of  His  Humanity  alone,  thus 
humanizing  and  limiting  Him  to  a  mere  Example,  and 
not  viewing  Him  as  the  One  Almighty  God,  pervading 
all  the  universe  with  His  Spirit  ?  "  It  is  expedient  for 
you  that  I  go  away  \  "  ^  may  not  these  words  be  addressed 

a  mere  magic ;  the  grossest  immorality  and  the  most  slarish  superstition 
being  thus  combined.  According  to  the  almost  universal  usage  of  the 
da}"-,  lives  of  pleasure  were  supposed  to  be  made  holy  by  the  insertion  of 
an  occasional  parenthesis  of  religious  retreat  to  monastery  or  shrine. 
These  may  be  called  extreme  cases,  and  cases  of  hypocrisy  may  be 
cited  on  the  other  side,  where  men,  theoretically  holding  to  a  spiritual 
faith,  have  led  immoral  lives.  But  the  distinction  rests  in  the  fact  that 
immorality  in  the  latter  case  is  in  the  teeth  of  the  principles  avowed;  in 
the  former  case,  the  principle  is  pleaded  as  an  excuse.  The  man  who 
feels  at  all  times  and  at  all  places,  "Thou,  God,  seest  me;  Thou  art 
the  Omnipresent  Observer  and  Avenger  of  sin,"  is  under  a  restraint  of 
•which  he  is  unconscious  who  conceives  the  Divine  Presence  to  be  se- 
cluded within  shrine  or  emblem,  there  to  be  corporeally  received,  when 
necessary,  by  mechanical  act. 

1  John  xvi.  7.  "  It  (the  passage  in  the  text)  affirms,  not  merely  that 
the  Holy  Spirit  was  to  come,  but  that,  unless  Christ  departed.  He  could 
not  come;  that  the  disappearance  was  the  necessary  condition  of  the 
Advent,  that  a  Visible  Christ  and  an  '  Invisible  Spirit  of  Christ '  were  in 
the  present  dispensation  incompatible."  —  Archer  Butler,  Strmon  XIX. 
In  this,  and  the  two  accompanying  sermons  by  the  same  very  able  writer, 
will  be  found  an  elaborate  disquisition  on  this  whole  topic. 

St.  Augustine,  in  his  commentary  on  John  xvi.  7,  thus  writes:  — 
"  Could  He  not,  ht'mg  here,  send  Him?    Who  would  say  this?     For 
it  must  not  be  imagined  that  He  had  left  the  place  where  that  Spirit  was, 


92  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

not  merely  to  those  who  would  detain  the  Lord  in 
His  Bodily  Presence  on  earth,  but  to  those  who  would 

and  was  in  such  manner  come  from  the  Father  as  not  to  abide  with  the 
Father.  In  short,  how  should  He  not  have  power,  even  being  here,  to 
send  Him  whom  we  know  to  have  come  upon  Him  at  His  baptism,  and 
to  have  remained  with  Him;  nay,  indeed,  from  whom  we  know  He  was 
at  no  time  separable?  Then  what  meaneth  it,  If  I  depart  not,  the  Com- 
forter will  not  come  unto  you;  but  ye  cannot  receive  the  Spirit,  so  long  as 
ye  persist  in  knowing  Christ  after  Hie  fieshf  Whence  he  who  hath  now 
received,  the  Spirit  saith,  Though  we  have  known  ChHst  after  the  fiesh, 
yet  henceforth  know  we  Him  no  more.  (2  Cor.  v.  16.)  For,  even  the  flesh 
of  Christ,  that  man  knoweth  not  after  the  flesh,  who  spiritually  knoweth 
the  Word  made  flesh.  —  Only  we  must  not  imagine  that  the  Father 
is  in  any  man  without  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  or  the  Father  and 
Son  without  the  Holy  Ghost,  or  the  Son  without  the  Father  and  Holy 
Ghost,  or  the  Holy  Ghost  without  the  Father  and  Son,  or  the  Father  and 
the  Holy  Ghost  without  the  Son ;  but  where  any  one  of  Them  is,  there 
is  the  Trinity,  One  God."  —Oxford  ed.  of  Fathers,  Vol.  xxix.  p.  886. 

The  same  great  thinker,  in  a  sermon  on  the  same  passage,  writes: 
"  Now  there  would  be  no  great  merit  or  glorious  blessedness  of  believing, 
if  the  Lord  were  always  in  His  risen  body  visible  to  human  eves.  The 
Holy  Ghost,  therefore,  brought  this  great  boon  to  them  which  should  be- 
lieve, thai  Bim  whom  with  fleshly  eyes  they  should  not  see,  they  should  sigh 
after,  with  a  mind  sober  from  fleshly  lusts,  and  inebriated  with  spiritual 
longings.  This  blessedness  the  Holy  Ghost  the  Paraclete  hath  brought, 
that,  the  form  of  a  servant^  which  the  Lord  took  of  the  Virgin's  womb,  be- 
ing removed  from  the  eyes  of  the  flesh,  the  purged  eye-sight  of  the  mind 
should  be  directed  to  the  very  form  of  God,  in  which  He  continued  to  be  equal 
with  the  Father,  even  when  He  deigned  to  appear  in  the  flesh.  By  His 
Godhead  indeed  He  is  ever  with  us;  but  unless  He  had  departed  bodily 
from  us,  we  should  always  see  His  body  carnally  and  never  spiritually  be- 
lieve: by  which  faith  justified  and  blessed,  we  should  be  meet  with 
cleansed  heart  to  behold  that  self-same  Word.  God  with  God,  by  whom 
all  things  were  made,  and  which  was  made  flesh  to  dwell  in  us."  —  Ibid. 
Meyer,  with  his  usual  precision,  thus  states  the  same  truth :  — 
"  Uebrigens  streitet  der  Satz  nicht  mit  der  alttestamentlichen  Geistes 
wirksamkeit,  da  an  u.  St.  von  dem  Geiste,  so  fern  er  das  Princip  des 
speciflsh  christlichen  Lebens  ist,  geredet  wird.  In  dieser  Bestimmtheit, 
mit  der  christlich  charismatischen  Fiille,  war  er  noch  nicht  da.  Grund: 
weil  Jesus  noch  nicht  zur  Glorie  erhoben  war.  Er  musste  erst  durch  seinen 
Tod  zum  Himmel  zuriick  kehren,  mn  den  Geist  vom  Himmel  ans  zu 


SILENCE    GUARDING    CHRIST  S    DIVINITY.  93 

hold  to  Him  simply  as  a  holy  Example  and  unerring 
Guide  ?  And  to  such,  this  Silence  of  Scripture  has  a 
message  almost  as  emphatic  as  that  which  it  bears  to 
those  who  would  confine  Him  to  material  image  or 
spot.  For,  we  have  not  merely  those  repeated  declara- 
tions of  Scripture  which  speak  of  the  Lord  Jesus  as 
"  equal  with  God  ;  "  as  "  God  manifest  in  the  flesh  ;  " 
as  one  with  the  Father ;  as  being  the  fulness  of  the 
Godhead  bodily  ;  as  God,  above  all,  and  in  all  ;  but 
we  have  Divinity  so  encircling  and  enclosing  the  Hu- 
manity of  Christ,  that  to  receive  Him  as  Human  we 
must  receive  Him  as  Divine.  "  Touch  me  not,"  —  As 
mortal,  I  by  mortals  am  not  to  be  approached.  There 
is  nothing  Human  that  you  can  clasp,  unless  you  em- 
brace and  worship  the  Divine.  To  the  Human,  the 
human  avenues  have  been  closed.  No  portrait  here  ; 
no  relic,  or  prescribed  channel  up  which  human  ener- 
gies may  climb  ;  no  visible  foot-prints  which  the  human 
foot  may  in  its  own  strength  pursue  ;  there  is  vividness 
in  spiritual  portraiture,  it  is  true  ;  there  is  awful  close- 
ness in  spiritual  application,  as  if  the  Lord,  no  longer 
on  the  mount  or  in  the  boat,  was  breathing  in  our  very 
soul  ;  but  there  is  nothing  which  Divinity  does  not  now 
inclose  and  incorporate  ;  nothing  in  that  All-Holy  Ex- 
ample which  we  can  detach  and  make  ours,  while  we 
still  continue  to  walk  as  unrenewed  men,  apart  from  the 

senden.  Diese  Sendung  war  die  Bedingung  des  nachmaligen  etvai  (adesse). 
'  Die  Anpgiersung  des  Geistes  war  die  Enveisung  seiner  eingetretenen 
Uebenveltlichkeit.'  (Hoflfm.  Scriftbeweis,  I.  p.  169.)  Bis  dahin  blieben 
die  Gliiubigen  an  die  personliche  Erscheinung  Jesu  gewiesen :  dieser  aber 
war  der  Inhaber  des  Geistes,  welcher  jetzt  noch  anf  ihn  selbst  beschrankt 
und  erst  nach  seinem  Hingange  znr  Mittheilung  an  die  Glaiibigen  als 
Stettvertreter  Jesu  zur  Fortfiihrung  seines  Werks  bestimrat  war."  — 
Meyer,  Evang.  Johan.  3  Auf.  242. 


94  SILENCE    GUARDING    CHRIST  S    DIVINITY. 

Spirit  of  God.  And  if  we  thus  seek  to  reduce  the  Lord 
to  a  mere  human  example,  venerable  as  we  may  make 
it,  we  hear  those  mournful  words  :  "  It  is  expedient  for 
you  that  I  go  away."  And  Inspiration  herself,  with 
finger  on  her  lip,  turns  us  from  the  merely  human,  with 
the  words,  "  He  is  not  here  ;  He  is  risen."  He,  the 
God-man,  is  to  be  sought  at  the  throne  of  gface.  Per- 
fect Man  He  indeed  is,  but  only  to  be  found  as  Perfect 
Man  when  sought  also  as  Perfect  God.-^ 

But  to  these  views  it  may  be  objected  that  the  princi- 

1  2  Cor.  V.  16.  On  this  point,  Hedinger  (cited  by  Lange,  in  hco) 
writes :  — 

"Von  Christo  haben  sie  (Christen)  nicht  mehr  Jleischlic/ie  GedanJcen, 
suchen  oder  gewarten  nichts  Fleischliches  an  ihm,  erkennen  ihn  diirch 
den  Geist  als  den  Sohn  Gottes,  ihren  einigen  Heiland  und  Seligmacher 

—  Inwendiff  musst  du  ihn  kennen,  in  ihm  und  durch  ihn  eine  neue  Kre- 
atursein:  die  f/ilt,  sonst  nichts.''''  The  last  words  touch  the  core.  This 
spiritual  knowledge  of  Christ  is  not  of  the  flesh;  it  can  only  come  by 
the  new  creation  of  the  Holy  Ghost.     (Gal.  v.  6.) 

The  same  essential  truth,  which  underlies  this  whole  doctrine,  is  thus 
admirably  stated:  "Die  mit  Christo  allem  absterben,  haben  keine 
menschliche  oder  fleischliche  Bekanntschaft  oder  Anhtinglichkeit  mehr. 

—  Die  kindheit  muss  dem  Jiinglings-  und  Mannesalter  weichen:  tvir 
miissen  nicht  bei  der  blossen  Menscheit  Christi  slehen  bleiben^  sondern  zu 
seiner  Gottheit  selber  7ins  nahen  Itrnen.  Denn  dazu  ist  jene  vom  Sohne 
Gottes  angenommen,  uns  schuchterne  und  abgewichene  Kreaturen 
durch  ihre  Freundlichkeit  wiederum  mit  Gott  zu  verbinden.  —  Die  neue 
Kreatur  ist  des  Herrn  Jesu  Leben  in  uns,  aus  Gott  geboren,  ein  heilig 
Let  en."  —  Berlenb.  Bibel,  2  Cor.  v.  IG,  17. 

St.  Chrysostom,  in  his  homily  on  2  Cor.  v.  17,  adds  to  this  the  follow- 
ing thought:  "For  in  us,  indeed,  aftei'  the  fiesh  is  being  in  sins,  and 
not  after  the  flesh  not  being  in  sins!  But  in  Christ,  after  the  flesh  is  His 
being  subject  to  the  affections  of  nature,  such  as  to  thirst,  to  weariness, 
to  sleep.  And  not  after  the  flesh  is  being  thenceforward  freed  even  from 
these  things,  not  the  bein«^  without  flesh.  For  with  this  also  He  cometh 
to  judge  the  world.  His  being  impassible  and  pure.  Whereunto  we 
shall  also  advance,  when  our  body  hath  been  fashioned  like  unto  His 
glorious  body."  —  Oxford  ed.  xxvii.  p.  139. 


TRUE    VALUE    OF    ANNIVERSARIES.  95 

pie  on  which  they  rest  debars  us  from  all  commemora- 
tion of  our  blessed  Lord  except  such  as  Scripture  pre- 
scribes. As  this  objection  is  one  of  much  doctrinal  as 
well  as  practical  interest,  I  will  notice  it  somewhat  in 
detail. 

So  far  as  concerns  any  commemorations  which  are 
founded  on  false  assumptions  of  fact  or  doctrine,  no 
doubt  the  objection  holds  good.  No  relics  can  be  con- 
nected by  history  with  the  Lord  ;  and  so  far  as  concerns 
images  of  Himself  or  His  saints,  they  should  be  care- 
fully excluded  from  any  position  \vhere,  in  violation  of 
the  scriptural  command,  they  would  be  likely  to  be  con- 
sidered objects  of  worship.  But  with  regard  to  com- 
memorative days  and  commemorative  places,  the  ques- 
tion stands  on  different  grounds. 

Take,  first,  commemorative  days ;  and  observe  that 
while  the  only  periods  which  we  can  determine  by 
Scripture  are  the  Lord's  Day  and  Easter,  including  the 
events  of  the  preceding  week  and  that  of  the  Ascen- 
sion which  succeeds,  the  whole  question  of  such  services 
falls  within  the  Church's  proper  jurisdiction.  "  Every 
particular  or  national  church,  hath  authority  to  ordain, 
change,  and  abolish  ceremonies  or  rites  of  the  Church, 
ordained  only  by  man's  authority,  so  that  all  things  be 
done  to  edifying."  ^  In  no  way  could  the  question  be 
stated  more  succinctly  or  satisfactorily.  Wherever  a  rite 
or  ceremony  is  not  ordained  by  Scripture,  the  question 
is  open  for  the  action  of  "  each  particular  or  national 
church  ;  "  but  the  test  is,  —  edification  :  that  which  con- 
duces to  it  may  be  established  ;  that  which  is  not  con- 
ducive to  it  should  be  left  untouched.  Here,  then,  the 
tendency  of  the  whole  question  of  frequent  festivals 
1  Art.  xxxiv. 


96  THE   SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

comes  up ;  and  for  myself,  I  cannot  doubt  that  in 
climates  such  as  those  in  which  the  English  tongue  is 
spoken,  with  temperaments  such  as  those  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race,  our  ecclesiastical  festivals  should  be  limited, 
with  but  few  exceptions,  to  the  weekly  rests  of  the 
Lord's  Day.  "  Six  days  shalt  thou  labor  ; "  such  is  the 
divine  command,  a  frequent  dispensation  of  which  has 
been  found  conducive  neither  to  public  morals  nor  in- 
dividual piety.  "  Orare  et  laborare  ;  "  such  is  the  spirit 
of  the  scriptural  injunctions,  working  prayer  into  labor, 
so  that  men  may  pray  without  ceasing,  retaining,  at  the 
same  time,  the  Divine  appointment  of  the  weekly  day  of 
rest.  There  is  a  danger,  on  the  other  view,  of  piety  pre- 
siding over  our  mactio?i,  and  deserting  our  action  ;  heaped 
up  in  periods  of  stated  worship,  but  leaving  those  far 
more  extended  periods,  when  we  act  upon  others  and 
upon  the  world,  bleak  and  bare,  unsubdued,  uncor- 
rected, unsanctified  by  the  appeal  to  the  presence  of  the 
Most  High. 

And  yet,  at  the  same  time,  it  is  perfectly  consistent 
with  this  view  that  there  should  be  established  certain 
grand  anniversaries  in  which  the  signal  epochs  of  our 
Lord's  ministry  should  be  commemorated. 

"  It  was  the  winter  wild 
When  the  Heaven-bom  Child, 
All  meanly  wrapped,  in  the  rude  manger  lay." 

So  sang  Milton,  in  this  soaring  from  the  very 
breadth  and  power  of  his  genius,  above  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  Puritan  reaction  ;  and  though  the  period 
has  been  arbitrarily  fixed ;  although  the  wintry  asso- 
ciations with  which,  for  so  many  centuries,  it  has  been 
connected,  must  be  detached  from  it  when  it  is  observed 
in  southern  hemispheres  ;  although  the  date  was  left  an 


TRUE    VALUE    OF    ANNIVERSARIES.  97 

open  one  by  those  who  with  inspired  pen  recorded  the 
Lord's  life ;  ^  yet  is  this  sweetest  and  tenderest  of  all 
our  festivals  one  which  it  would  be  well  for  our  nation's 
home  life,  as  well  as  our  nation's  religious  life,  to  sa- 
credly observe.  So,  also,  to  the  fast  of  Lent.  Who  can- 
not but  feel  that  as  there  are  specific  periods  of  the  day 
which  we  set  apart  for  peculiar  communion,  so  there 
should  be  specific  periods  of  the  year  when  the  divine 
injunction  of  fasting  and  prayer  should  be  especially  ob- 
served ;  not,  indeed,  so  as  to  suspend  weekly  labor,  but 
in  sanctifying  and  solemnizing  that  labor  by  leading  the 
mind  to  dwell  in  peculiar  closeness  on  the  sufferings  and 
death  of  our  blessed  Lord,  and  the  sins  which  nailed 
Him  to  the  tree.  The  mind  must  have  such  periods  ;  it 
cannot  blend  all  states  in  one,  — joy,  penitence,  self-ex- 
amination ;  it  cannot  blend  all  commemorations  in  one, 
without  losing  its  distinctness  of  conception  of  each. 
And  so  it  is  with  the  Ecclesiastical  Year,  as  a  means  of 
religious  instruction  on  the  Lord's  Day.  We  must  re- 
member, as  has  been  already  seen,  that  the  Scriptures 
do  not  present  to  us  a  scientific  scheme  of  theology,  but 
a  series  of  detached  facts  and  doctrines  from  which  the 
individual  creed  is  to  be  drawn ;  and  among  these,  by 
far  the  most  vital  are  the  facts  connected  with  the 
Incarnation  of  the  Lord.  He  was  born ;  He  was  sub- 
ject to  the  law's  ordinances  for  us  ;  He  was  tempted  ; 
He  was  betrayed  ;  He  was  crucified  for  us,  dead  and 
buried ;  He  rose  again,  and  ascended  into  heaven. 
Each  fact  has  its  significance  ;  each  its  full  teaching ; 
it  is  by  study  of  them,  by  pondering  over  them,  by 
contact  with  them,  that  the  full  truth  of  redemption  is 
breathed  into  our   hearts.     Our  eye  is  too   limited  to 

1  See  Alford'3  Greek  Testament,  Luke  iii.  1,  note. 
7 


98  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

survey  this  vast  field  at  once  ;  the  field  is  too  divine  ; 
blurred  and  feeble  and  vague  are  our  impressions  if 
we  attempt  it.  And  what  method  of  study  is  so  devout 
and  effective  as  this  of  having  these  great  truths  set 
before  us  in  succession,  corresponding  with  the  prog- 
ress of  His  own  blessed  life,  and  culminating  with 
the  descent  of  the  Holy  Ghost !  AVhat  method  of  in- 
struction so  simple  to  the  young  mind,  so  consola- 
tory to  the  old !  And  yet  great  caution  is  to  be  exer- 
cised, lest  the  commemoration  should  be  viewed  as 
bringing  down  and  localizing  the  Lord  in  particular 
epochs.^  Christ  revisits  us  not  on  these  particular 
days,  for  He  is  always  with  us  ;  but  that  we  may  best 
know  and  worship  Him,  we  set  apart  in  order  periods 
when  we  will  dwell  on  the  successive  epochs  of  His 
life  on  earth.  We  cover  up  none  ;  if  we  do  so,  —  if 
either  be  lightly  considered,  —  the  fulness  of  His  di- 
vine work  may  be  lost  to  us.  We  fear  always  to  blend 
them,  lest  the  acute  and  vivid  realities  of  the  Godhead 
manifest  in  the  flesh  be  dimmed.  But  while,  in  a  large 
portion  of  the  year  the  moral  and  spiritual  teachings 
of  the  incarnation  are  presented  to  us  in  their  various 
general  relations,  from  Advent  to  Whitsunday  do  we 
follow  Him  from  His  miraculous  incarnation  to  the 
consummation  of  His   ministry  in  the  descent  of  the 

1  Mr.  Croswell's  lines  touch  this  point  ven'  beautifully:  — 
"  Oh  let  the  streams  of  solemn  thought, 
Which  in  His  temples  rise, 
From  deeper  sources  spring,  than  aught 
Born  of  the  changing  skies. 

"  Then  though  the  summer's  pride  departs, 
And  winter's  withering  chill 
Rests  on  the  chceriess  words,  our  hearts 
Shall  be  unchanging  still." 


TRUE  PURPOSE  OF  THE  SANCTUARY.       99 

Holy  Ghost.  God  grant  that  thus  walking  with  our 
eyes  turned  heavenward,  recalling  His  blessed  ministry 
for  our  redemption,  it  may  be  ours  on  the  last  day  to 
see  the  King  in  His  beauty  face  to  face. 

And  so  with  regard  to  the  edifices  in  which  our  wor- 
ship ascends.  Once  a  patriarch  lifted  up  his  voice  and 
cried  :  "  Surely,  the  Lord  is  in  this  place,  and  I  knew 
it  not.  And  he  was  afraid,  and  said,  How  dreadful 
is  this  place  !  This  is  none  other  but  the  House  of  God, 
and  this  is  the  gate  of  heaven."  ^  But  when  Jacob  thus 
spoke,  he  stood  in  the  open  field,  where  the  sole  tem- 
ple was  the  heap  of  stones  which  he  had  collected 
for  his  pillow,  but  where  angels  ascending  and  descend- 
ing spoke  of  the  close  presence  of  God.  "  Surely  God 
is  in  this  place,  and  I  knew  it  not ;  "  such  must  be  our 
waking  thoughts  whenever  we  arouse  ourselves  from  the 
dreams  of  the  flesh.  For  the  heavens  are  His  throne, 
and  the  earth  His  footstool ;  and  wherever  we  are,  sin- 
ning or  praying,  obeying  or  rebelling,  there  is  He. 
And  yet,  obligatory  as  is  the  divine  injunction  to  assem- 
ble ourselves  together  for  His  worship,  it  is  meet  that 
particular  and  adequate  sanctuaries  should  be  erected 
and  consecrated  for  this  purpose,  and  for  the  especial 
service  of  the  Lord.  In  such  sanctuaries  it  should  be 
far  from  us  to  dare  to  symbolize  a  habitation  for  Him 
who  dwelleth  not  in  temples  made  with  hands,  but  who 
has  consecrated  the  devout  and  contrite  heart  for  His 
particular  seat.  It  is  a  dishonor  to  the  infinite  and 
awful  Deity,  by  structure  or  by  gesture,  to  treat  Him  as 
localized  in  altar  or  shrine  ;  it  lowers  the  eye  of  faith 
and  sensualizes  worship  to  hold  Him  forth,  not  as  spirit- 
ually communing  in  His  omnipotence  with  the  devout, 
1  Gen.  xxviii.  16, 17. 


lOO  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

but  as  removed  from  them,  with  a  dreary  and  godless 
blank  between,  only  to  be  approached  on  epoch  or  at 
site.  But,  while  this  is  the  case,  the  house  where  His 
people  assemble  to  worship  Him  should- be  made  wor- 
thy of  the  most  glorious  office  of  which  our  race,  in  its 
social  relations,  is  capable.  There  is  no  propitiation  in 
this ;  there  is  no  sacrifice  in  this  ;  there  is  no  visible 
altar  to  be  erected  as  His  especial  abiding  place  ;  ^  but 
there  is  much  to  be  done  in  commemoration  of  His 
love,  as  a  token  of  His  priceless  and  complete  sac- 
rifice on  the  cross  for  us.  "Against  the  day  of  my 
burying  hath  she  done  this."^  "  Verily,  wheresoever  this 
gospel  shall  be  preached  in  the  whole  world,  there  shall 
also  this  be  told  for  a  memorial  of  her."  ^  So  said  Jesus 
of  the  woman  who  poured  the  costly  ointment  on  His 
feet.  So  of  her  who  anointed  Him  with  ointment 
brought  in  an  alabaster  box,  he  spoke :  "  Simon,  seest 

1  See  Heb.  x.  1-13.  Celsus  made  it  one  of  his  principal  charges 
against  Christianity  that  it  could  not  come  from  God,  as  it  established 
neither  altar  nor  image.  Origen  (c.  Cels.  viii.  17)  states  the  objection 
thus :  "  After  this,  Celsus  says  that  we  abstain  from  setting  up  altars, 
images^  temples.''''  And  the  truth  of  this  Origen  does  not  dispute.  In  the 
Oxford  edition  of  Tertullian^  p.  109,  we  find  this  passage  from  Origen 
cited,  with  the  following  addition :  "  Caecilius  ap.  Minuc.  F.  p.  91. 
'  Why  have  they  no  altars,  no  temples,  no  known  images  ?  '  —  Arnobius 
I.  vi.  '  Ye  are  wont  to  charge  us,  as  with  the  greatest  impiety,  that 
we  neither  erect  sacred  buildings  for  the  offices  of  worship,  or  set  up  the 
images  or  likeness  of  any  of  the  gods,  or  make  altars,'  "  &c.  —  Lact.  de 
Mortib.  Persec.  12.     And  this  the  Christian  apologists  admitted. 

Now  these  extracts  prove  two  very  important  points :  — 

1.  That  which  ran  counter  to  the  then  universal  idea  of  a  divine  reve- 
lation could  not  have  been  the  conception  of  either  impostor  or  enthusi- 
ast ;  and  that,  therefore,  which  we  cannot  trace  to  man,  we  must  attrib- 
ute to  God. 

2.  The  notion  of  the  localization  of  Divinity  in  altar,  or  temple,  or 
image,  was  a  conception  of  the  later  Church. 

2  John  xii.  7.  8  Matt.  xxvi.  13. 


TRUE  PURPOSE  OF  THE  SANCTUARY.      101 

thou  this  woman  ?  I  entered  into  thine  house,  thou 
gavest  Me  no  water  for  My  feet :  but  she  hath  washed 
My  feet  with  tears,  and  wiped  them  with  the  hairs  of 
her  head.  Thou  gavest  Me  no  kiss  :  but  this  woman, 
since  the  time  I  came  in,  hath  not  ceased  to  kiss  My 
feet.  My  head  with  oil  thou  didst  not  anoint :  but  this 
woman  hath  anointed  My  feet  with  ointment.  Where- 
fore, I  say  unto  thee,  her  sins,  which  are  many,  are 
FORGIVEN  ;  FOR  SHE  LOVED  MUCH."  ^  Here,  then,  is  the 
motive  power  and  the  consequence ;  the  motive  power 
being  consciousness  of  sin  producing  love  to  Him  by 
whom  sin  is  expiated ;  the  consequence  being  love 
showing  itself  in  grateful  and  costly  gifts  to  Him  and 
His  worship.  There  is  no  merit  in  this  ;  God  accepts 
not  the  gift  for  its  value,  unworthy  of  Him  as  is  that 
heart  by  which  such  offering  is  grudged.  We  must  not 
withhold  from  the  poor,  or  from  the  Church's  missions, 
in  order  to  add  strength  and  beauty  to  the  building  in 
which  we  worship  ;  but,  if  needs  be,  we  must  withhold 
from  ourselves.  We  dare  not  provide  massive  founda- 
tion and  stately  wall,  —  we  dare  not  invoke  the  archi- 
tect's genius  and  the  laborers'  patient  toils  for  the  homes 
in  which  for  a  few  years  we  and  our  children  may 
reside,  —  and  refuse  them  to  the  temple  which  we  think 
worthy  of  the  commemorative  rites  of  our  Saviour's 
sacrifice,  and  in  which  generation  after  generation  is  to 
worship  God.  If  economy  in  structure  or  decoration  is 
to  be  applied,  let  it  not  be  here  ;  and  yet,  let  it  be 
always  recollected  that  it  is  as  a  memorial  of  God's  love 
to  us  that  the  temple  is  built ;  that  it  neither  draws 
God  nearer  to  us,  nor  adds  to  the  power  of  our  worship ; 
and  that  it  is  because  He  is  an  ever-present  God,  ours 
1  Luke  vii.  37-50. 


I02  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

everywhere  and  ever,  that  we  would  offer  to  Him  the 
most  precious  of  what  we  have.^ 

1  Mr.  Ruskin  speaks  admirably  on  this  point  :  "If  there  be  an^ 
difference  between  the  Levitical  and  the  Christian  offering,  it  is  that  the 
latter  may  be  just  so  much  the  wider  in  its  range,  as  it  is  less  typical  ia 
its  meaning ;  as  it  is  thankful  instead  of  sncrifcial.  There  can  be  no  ex- 
cuse attempted,  because  the  Deity  does  not  now  visibly  dwell  in  His  tem- 
ple ;  if  He  is  invisible,  it  is  only  through  our  failing  faith ;  nor  an}'  ex- 
cuse because  other  calls  are  more  immediate  or  more  sacred;  this  ought 
to  be  done,  and  not  the  other  left  undone.  It  has  been  said  —  it  ought 
always  to  be  said,  for  it  is  true  —  that  a  better  and  more  honorable  offer- 
ing is  made  to  our  Master  in  ministry  to  the  poor,  in  extending  the  knowl- 
edge of  His  name,  in  the  practice  of  the  virtues  by  which  that  name  is 
hallowed,  than  in  material  presents  to  His  temple.  Assuredly  it  is  so; 
woe  to  all  who  think  that  any  other  kind  or  manner  of  offering  may  in 
any  sense  take  the  place  of  these !  Do  the  people  need  place  to  pray,  and 
calls  to  hear  His  Word  ?  Then  it  is  no  time  for  smoothing  pillars  and 
ca.Tx'mg  pulpits;  let  us  have  enough  first  of  walls  and  roofs.  I  insist,  I 
plead  for  this ;  but  let  us  examine  ourselves,  and  see  if  this  be  indeed 
the  reason  of  our  backwardness  in  the  lesser  work.  The  question  is  not 
between  God's  house  and  His  poor;  it  is  not  between  God's  house  and 
His  gospel.  It  is  betiveen  God's  house  and  ours.  Have  we  no  tessellated 
colors  on  our  floors?  —  no  frescoed  fancies  on  our  roofs?  no  niched  statu- 
aries in  our  corridors  ?  no  gilded  furniture  in  our  chambers  ?  no  costly 
stone  in  our  cabinets  ?  Has  even  a  tithe  of  these  been  ofiered  ?  They 
are,  or  they  ought  to  be,  the  signs  that  enough  has  been  devoted  to  the 
great  purposes  of  human  stewardship,  and  that  there  remains  to  us  what 
we  can  spend  in  luxury;  but  there  is  a  greater  and  prouder  luxury  than 
this  selfish  one,  —  that  of  bringing  a  portion  of  such  things  as  these  into 
sacred  service,  and  of  presenting  them  for  a  memorial,  that  our  pleasure 
as  well  as  our  toil  has  been  hallowed  by  the  remembrance  of  Him  who 
gave  both  the  strength  and  the  reward.  And  until  this  is  done,  I  do  not 
see  how  such  possessions  can  be  retained  to  happiness.  So,  also,  let  us  not 
ask  of  what  use  our  offering  is  to  the  Church ;  it  is,  at  least,  better  for 
us  than  if  it  had  been  retained  for  ourselves.  It  may  be  better  for  others 
also;  there  is,  at  any  rate,  a  chance  for  this;  though  we  must  always 
fearfully  and  widely  shun  the  thought  that  the  magnificence  oj  the  temple 
can  materially  add  to  the  efficiency  of  the  worship  07'  to  the  power  of  the 
ministry.  Whatever  we  do,  or  whatever  we  oflfer,  let  it  not  interfere  with 
the  simplicity  of  the  one,  or  abate,  as  if  replacing,  the  zeal  of  the  other. 
That  is  the  abuse  and  fallacy  of  Romanism,  by  which  the  ti-ue  spirit  of 
Christian  offering  is  directly  contradicted.''  —  Seven  Lamps  of  Architect' 
ure:  Lamp  of  Sacrifice.    Pp.  14-16. 


CHRIST    NOT    LOCALIZED    IN    A    PATH.  I03 

And  then,  finally,  with  regard  to  that  view  which 
limits  the  Lord,  not  indeed  to  shrine  and  epoch,  but  to 
certain  merely  human  acts  ;  let  us  remember  that  it  is 
only  by  the  possession  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ  and  in 
the  recognition  of  Him  as  Perfect  God  as  well  as  Per- 
fect Man,  that  men  can  imitate  His  holy  life.  To 
conquer  in  our  own  strength  the  temptations  by  which 
we  are  assailed  ;  to  extirpate  in  our  own  strength  the 
sin  by  which  we  are  polluted ;  to  rise  in  our  own 
strength  over  the  powers  of  Nature,  of  death,  the 
grave,  and  hell ;  this  is  not  for  us,  in  this  our  fallen 
state.  But  in  Christ  and  by  Christ  our  nature  is  re- 
deemed, and,  partakers  with  Him  in  His  triumph,  we 
ascend  with  Him  to  His  throne.-^  Holy,  indeed,  was 
His  life,  and  full  of  mercy  and  truth  His  deeds ;  but  we 
cannot  localize  Him  in  a  path^  though  it  is  the  path 
which  He  Himself  trod,  any  more  than  we  can  localize 
Him  in  epoch  or  shrine.  We  clutch  the  human,  and 
we  fall,  for  it  is  vanished.  But  if  in  devout  prayer  we 
seek  the  God-man,  then  divine  grace  speaks  :  "  The 
Comforter  is  come,  whom  I  send  unto  you  ;   He  shall 

1  "  For  such  persons  as  have  no  other  knowledge  of  Christ,  no  other 
fiaith  in  Him,  than  that  which  I  have  been  just  describing,  it  is  most  ex- 
pedient that  Jesus  should  go  away  from  them.  It  is  expedient  for  them 
that  the  man  Jesus  —  the  fair  ideal  which  they  have  formed  of  perfect  wis- 
dom and  virtue,  which  has  shone  as  an  example  before  them,  and  which 
they  have  fancied  themselves  able  to  follow  —  should  pass  away  from 
their  minds,  —  that  they  should  feel  its  inadequateness  to  strengthen 
what  is  weak  in  them,  and  to  supply  what  is  wanting  —  in  order  that 
they  may  be  led  to  seek  Jesus  and  to  find  Him,  no  longer  as  a  mere 
teacher  and  example,  but  transfigured  into  their  God  and  Saviour  and 
Redeemer.  That  is  to  say,  we  must  lose  Christ  as  a  man,  to  regain 
Him  as  a  God."     Hare,  Mission  of  the  Comforter,  p.  55. 

See  also  Stier's  Evangelien-Predigten  (1:^0.33,  Am  Sonntage  Cantate) 
—  a  collection  of  sermons  which,  though  as  yet  untranslated,  fully  equals 
in  merit  the  Commentary  on  the  Words  of  the  Lord  Jesus. 


104  THE    SILENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

testify  of  Me,"  —  and  then  a  new  life  bursts  into  the 
heart ;  not  the  toilsome  and  grievous  following  Christ 
after  the  flesh,  but  the  new  creation  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
With  a  feeling  that  all  sin  is  freely  pardoned  by  the 
oblation  of  our  ever  blessed  Lord,  —  that  His  merits 
cover  all  our  sins,  and  His  strength  will  supply  all  our 
weakness,  the  pardoned  sinner,  through  grace,  rises  step 
by  step  to  the  state  of  the  sinless  and  glorified  saint.^ 

So  I  conclude  these  thoughts  on  the  Silence  of  Script- 
ure as  to  the  Lord's  Personal  Appearance  and  its  Rela- 
tions. In  the  last  chapter,  on  the  Silence  as  to  the  Vir- 
gin Mother,  and  as  to  whatsoever  would  withdraw  our 
minds  from  His  all-sufficient  tenderness  and  compas- 
sion as  the  One  Mediator  and  Intercessor  for  our  Sins, 
I  said  that  this  silence  was  a  screen  so  placed  as  if  to 
bring  before  us,  as  divinely  isolated  from  all  mortal 
companionships,  the  human  nature  of  Him,  our  ever 
blessed  Lord.  And  now,  silence  stands  on  the  other 
side  of  His  all-adorable  Being,  and,  in  the  great  pres- 
ence-chamber of  Inspiration  we  worship  Him  alone. 
If,  on  the  one  side,  all  that  would  distract  our  concep- 
tion of  His  human  nature  is  veiled  ;  so,  on  the  other 
side,  is  veiled  all  that  would  distract  our  conception  of 
His  divine  nature.  He  is  Human,  as  performing  obe- 
dience to  the  law  for  us  ;  as  for  us,  becoming  perfect 
through  suffering ;  as  for  us,  restoring  our  ruined  hu- 
manity by  assuming  its  flesh  ;  as  for  us,  in  our  nature, 
making  intercession  for  us  ;  as  for  us,  having  a  fellow- 
feeling  for  our  infirmities,  being  tempted  at  all  points 
as  we  are,  yet  without  sin  ;  as  in  this  nature  raising  His 
people  to  heavenly  places  as  one  with  Himself  He  is 
1  See  Appendix  D.    See  also  notes  on  pp.  91,  92. 


SILENCE    GUARDING    THE    REVEALED    WORD.         105 

Divine,  as  coming  Himself  to  be  a  willing  offering, 
preexistent  to  man,  to  expiate  man's  sins  ;  as,  by  the 
power  and  might  of  His  divinity  bearing  a  weight  of 
expiation  which  no  creature  could  sustain  ;  as  the  Di- 
vine Source  from  whom  springs  the  Comforter  to  solace 
and  direct  us  until  He  return  in  glory  to  reign  ;  as  the 
Conqueror  of  sin,  the  world,  and  death ;  as  the  Captain 
and  Guide  by  whom  His  people  are  to  be  led  over  the 
vale  of  this  mortal  life,  until  they  reach  the  divine  roy- 
alties of  heaven  ;  and  as  their  glorious  Welcomer  to 
those  eternal  abodes.  And  these  two  natures  are  in 
one,  not  confounded,  but  united,  so  that  He  can  be  the 
One  Mediator  betv\'een  God  and  man.  Of  Him  as  such 
all  Scriptures  speak  ;  and  then  these  Silences  encircle 
and  shelter  the  inspired  voice,  conducting  it  —  awful,, 
single,  and  severe  —  to  our  mortal  ears.  So,  then,  is 
this  Silence  the  Trumpet  which  brings  to  us,  unmixed 
with  human  notes,  the  message  :  —  "  Behold  the  Lamb 
of  God ;  Christ,  manifest  in  the  Flesh ;  God's  Divine 
Son,  yet  born  of  a  Virgin  ;  dying  for  your  sins  ;  as- 
cending as  your  Saviour  to  the  throne  of  the  Most 
High."  We  are  shut  out  from  all  else  ;  and  if  we  could 
imagine  the  heavens  to  be  filled  with  God's  angels  and 
saints,  —  if  we  could  imagine  ordinance  and  altar  and 
sacrament  to  join  their  testimony  to  that  august  host,  — 
each  would  turn  from  us  as  we  appealed  to  them,  and 
looking  orily  to  Him,  cry,  "  Holy,  Holy,  Holy,  Lord 
God  of  Hosts !  Heaven  and  earth  are  full  of  Thy 
Glory  :    Glory  be  to  Thee,  O  God  Most  High." 

And  to  Him,  our  ever  -  adorable  Lord,  with 
THE  Father  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  be  all  domin- 
ion, power,  and  glory,  world  without  end. 


APPENDICES. 

APPENDIX  A. 

(P-5I-) 

CREEDS,    NOT    FINALITIES. 

ST.  AUGUSTINE  thus  writes  in  his  "  Essay  on 
Faith  and  the  Creed  "  :  — 
"  However  the  CathoHc  Faith  is  known  to  the  faithfUl, 
and  committed  to  memory  with  as  much  brevity  of 
speech  as  the  matter  allowed,  in  order  that  to  those  who 
have  been  bom  again  in  Christ,  commencing  and  still 
suckling,  7iot  yet  strengthened  by  most  diligent  and  spirit- 
ual ha7idling  of  the  divine  Scriptures^  there  might  be  put 
together  in  a  few  words  for  their  belief  what  was  after- 
wards, in  many  words,  to  be  expounded  to  them  as  they 
should  advance,  and  rise  unto  divine  doctrine  by  the 
assured  firmness  of  humility  and  charity.  Wherefore 
beneath  these  very  feiv  words  put  together  in  the  Creed,  the 
most  part  of  heretics  have  endeavored  to  hide  their  poi- 
sons ;  whom  the  Divine  mercy  hath  resisted  and  doth  resist 
by  means  of  spiritual  men^  —  Oxford  ed.  xxii.  p.  i6. 


I08-  APPENDICES. 

APPENDIX  B. 

(pp.  70,  77.) 

CHRIST,    THE    SOLE    SINLESS    SYMPATHIZER. 

I  hesitated  to  enlarge  on  this  topic  in  the  text,  for  fear 
of  breaking  its  continuity.  The  following  additional 
points,  however,  may  not  be  without  value  in  expanding 
the  argument :  — 

First,  on  the  human  side,  as  showing  our  need  of  this 
sympathy,  let  us  remember  man's  loneliness  in  the  most 
solemn  junctures  of  his  life.  Take,  as  the  first  of  these, 
conviction  of  sin  ;  and  see  how  this  loneliness  is  necessi- 
tated by  sin's  profound  subtlety  and  depth.  Our  super- 
ficial sins  are  known  to  all  who  observe  us.  They  are 
like  the  countenance,  which  is  inured  to  the  open  air, 
and  bears  without  wincing  human  sight  and  touch.  But 
there  are  secret  and  yet  dominant  sins,  which  lie  imbed- 
bed  in  such  sensitive  recesses  of  our  nature,  that  the 
heart  shuts  convulsively  over  them,  whenever  a  searching 
eye  draws  nigh.  And  there  are  other  sins,  more  fearful, 
which  are  stationed,  as  it  were,  at  the  portals  of  the 
heart,  warding  off  scrutiny  with  flaming  sword  and  flushed 
brow. 

"  That  man  was  never  born  whose  secret  soul, 
With  all  its  motley  treasures,  of  dark  thoughts, 
Foul  fantasies,  vain  musings,  and  wild  dreams, 
Was  ever  open  to  another's  scan." 

These  sins,  so  subtle,  so  secret,  so  defiant  in  their  fear 
of  discovery,  are  hidden  from  ma7i's  sight,  yet  they  form 
often  the  burden  of  our  life,  and  if  there  be  no  help,  its 
controlling  power.     We  must  sit  alone  with  them,  and 


CHRIST,    THE    SOLE    SINLESS    SYMPATHIZER.         lOQ 

Struggle  alone,  for  our  fellow-creatures  cannot  aid  us  in 
this  dread  encounter.  Man  knows  not  with  whom  we 
are  fighting,  or  for  what  we  fight.  Hence  it  is,  that  in 
the  great  crisis  of  conviction  of  sin,  the  kindest  hands 
that  touch  us  seem  cold  and  dead  ;  the  tenderest  eyes 
that  look  on  us  seem  dreamy  and  alien  ;  the  most  en- 
dearing words,  meaningless.  Crowds  may  eddy  about 
us,  yet  we  are  spiritually  alone  in  this  momentous  issue, 
unless  we  be  with  Christ. 

Loneliness,  again,  is  an  incident  oi  all  great  resolutions. 
Duties  only  strike  us  with  their  full,  healthy,  pure  force, 
when  we  rise  above  the  bias  and  prejudices  of  society, 
just  as  the  air  only  meets  us  in  its  full  bracing  energy 
when  we  are  on  the  mountain  summit.  And  peculiarly 
is  this  the  case,  when  the  resolution  is  to  renounce  self. 
It  is  not  merely  the  ivorld  that  we  must  then  leave. 
Very  often  this  self-renunciation  may  involve  surrenders 
which  even  our  Christiafi  friends  may  resist.  They  know 
not  our  weakness  ;  our  unfitness  for  temptation ;  the 
necessit^^  upon  us  to  follow  Christ  closely,  and  take  up 
His  heaviest  cross,  or  not  to  follow  Him  at  all.  They 
may  desire  from  their  very  love  of  us  to  knit  us  more 
closely  to  our  temporalities  than  we  would  do  ourselves. 
In  all  cases  of  the  first  conversion  in  a  family  this  is  so  ; 
for  the  young  Christian  must  take  his  pilgrim's  staff,  and 
forsake  the  mansion  of  self  and  all  who  cling  to  that 
mansion,  loved  and  revered  though  they  be.  Sometimes 
it  is  so  in  conversions  even  in  Christian  households, 
when  the  coals  on  the  hearth  have  smouldered,  and  the 
old,  heroic  love  to  Christ  become  faint.  "  Wherefore 
wilt  thou  go  forth  ? "  they  ask,  and  the  young  believer 
replies,  "  I  must  go,  for  the  Lord  stands  without,  and 
calls."     So  he  goes  forth,  forlorn  and  broken-hearted, 


IIO'  APPENDICES. 

but  trusting  in  Christ,  with  whom  he  journeys.  He  goes 
not  alone,  but  with  One  whose  presence  will  amply  com- 
pensate for  the  loss  of  all  earthly  ties.  Nor  does  he  go 
unfollowed  ;  for  other  steps  on  that  same  road  are  soon 
heard  from  that  same  home.  Moved  by  his  example, 
they  follow  in  his  path  —  the  quickened  pace  of  old  love, 
the  buoyant  tread  of  new. 

Then  as  we  are  alone  in  these  first  great  crises  of  our 
life,  so  we  must  all  of  us  be  humanly  alone  in  the  last. 
For  when  we  reach  the  end  of  this  world's  entry,  and 
stand  on  the  threshold  of  the  next,  the  fleshly  departs 
from  us,  and  the  spiritual  is  unveiled.  Those  about  us, 
even  the  dearest  of  them,  fade  and  flit  away,  and  we  are 
left  in  solitude  to  meet  our  God. 

Then  let  us,  in  view  of  this  need,  view  Christ  as  the 
sole  sinless  Sympathizer  with  the  sinner  ;  and  for  this 
very  reason,  in  view  of  His  Divinity,  the  sole  mediatorial 
stay  on  whom  the  sinner  can  rely.  Observe,  then,  how 
this  follows,  from  Chrisfs  holiness.  Among  me?i^  we  can- 
not but  observe  that  sympathy  wanes  as  sin  increases. 
Take  the  extreme  case,  and  go  to  the  haunts  of  the 
profligate  and  reckless,  and  ask  how  mucfi  sympathy  we 
find  in  them  ?  The  answer  is  given  as  we  listen  to  the 
vulgar  taunt,  the  cruel  joke,  the  fierce  oath,  the  wild 
cry  of  hate,  the  chuckle  of  delight  when  innocence  falls, 
the  hiss  of  treachery  when  another  can  be  exposed,  — 
sounds  which  we  can  never  separate  from  the  scenes 
where  profligate  crime  holds  sway. 

But  is  it  otherwise  with  respectable  crime  ?  View  this, 
for  instance,  in  the  phase  of  the  love  of  wealth  for  the 
mere  purpose  of  accumulation,  and  ask  how  it  is  here  ? 
Do  you  find  any  mercy  in  capital  whose  object  is  simply 
its  own  growth  ?     From  the  petty  tyrants  of  the  clothing 


CHRIST,    THE    SOLE    SINLESS    SYMPATHIZER.         Ill 

shop  to  the  merchant  emperors  who  hold  India  under 
their  corporate  sway,  do  we  not  see  that  it  is  the  tend- 
ency of  wealth,  when  thus  simply  seeking  accumulation, 
to  crush  out  whatever  of  individual  heart  or  happiness  or 
right  may  stand  in  its  way  ? 

"  Oh,  men  with  mothers  dear,"  — 

So  wrote  a  great  satirist,  — 

"  Oh,  men  with  sisters  and  Avives, 
This  is  not  linen  you  're  wearing  out, 
But  human  creatures'  lives." 

And  so,  also,  to  capital  in  its  larger  aspects,  when 
engaged  in  this  work  of  selfish  accumulation.  "  You  are 
trampling  out  human  souls," —  so  it  may  be  well  ad- 
dressed ;  —  "  you  talk  of  subdividing  labor,  but  you  are 
really  subdividing  me?i,  making  them  petty,  and  nar- 
row, and  mechanical ;  you  are  drawing  out  of  individual 
life  all  its  freshness  and  faith ;  you  are  making  an  athe- 
istic world  ;  yet  what  do  you  care  /  All  you  ask  is  that 
your  dividends  be  good  ;  no  inquiry  do  you  make  as  to 
the  miser)-  this  great  machine  of  capital  produces  as  it 
turns  itself  over  and  over  on  human  hearts."  Sympathy 
with  a  fellow-creature  has  no  place  in  those  machines 
which  capital  erects  for  its  own  multiplication. 

Then  take  another  passion  :  the  love  of  luxurious  ease. 
It  is  not  that  in  such  a  case  there  may  not  be  a  refined 
perception  of  scenic  or  sensuous  beauty,  for  wealth  and 
delicacy  may  be  guided  in  their  most  noble  labors  by 
such  a  hand.  Sympathy  with  imaginar)'  sorrow  may  be 
active,  for  tears  for  fictitious  grief  may  readily  flow  on 
a  countenance  which  would  sternly  frown  away  the  in- 
trusion of  real  distress.  But  what  we  here  see  before  us 
is  a  gradual  withering  up  of  true  sympathy,  under  the 


112  APPENDICES. 

enervating  influence  of  self-indulgence.  There  is  first  a 
withdrawal  of  this  sympathy  from  the  outer  circles  of 
vulgar  or  distant  life  ;  then  a  proud  indifference  to  all  out 
of  our  immediate  circle  ;  and  then  the  extinction  of  all 
that  does  not  touch  individual  interest,  and  then  perfect 
selfishness  is  the  result.  "  Close  the  curtains  more  tightly ; 
heap  up  the  cushions  ;  shut  the  door,  so  that  I  cannot 
hear  the  voice  of  humanity  imploring  aid,  or  even  of 
divinity  commanding  sacrifice."  And  so  luxuriousness 
at  last  has  no  love  left  in  it  but  self-love ;  it  has  love 
neither  to  God  or  man. 

Then  observe,  on  the  other  hand,  how  sympathy  grows 
with  holiness  ;  and  how  this  is  peculiarly  the  case  when 
there  is  a  personal  experience  of  temptation.  A  per- 
fectly holy  being,  without  this  experience,  could  not  but 
recoil  in  horror  from  human  guilt  as  incomprehensibly 
odious  and  fearful.  It  would  start  shiveringly  back,  as 
the  bird  from  the  reptile  ;  and  its  object  would  be  to  fly 
as  far  as  possible  from  the  accursed  thing.  But  it  would 
be  otherwise  with  one  who  had  borne  the  burden  of  this 
sinful  nature,  and  had  felt  at  once  its  awful  power  and 
its  insidious  magic.  The  more  saintly  does  one  thus 
experienced  become,  the  more  profoundly  does  he  feel 
the  reality  of  this  power,  and  the  more  tenderly  does  he 
mourn  with  those  who  sink  under  its  yoke.  There  is 
nothing  in  them  from  which  he  can  start  back  in  horror, 
for  there  is  nothing  in  them  which  he  has  not  felt  in  him- 
self Growth  in  sympathy  in  him  is  inseparable  from 
growth  in  grace.  And  do  we  not  see  this  in  practical 
life  ?  Is  not  censoriousness  and  a  severe  view  of  others' 
guilt  a  mark  of  spiritual  declension  ?  Are  not  the  most 
saintly  and  the  most  lowly  at  the  same  time  the  most 
merciful  ?     Was  there  ever  a  finer  love  of  souls  shown 


CHRIST,    THE    SOLE    SINLESS    SYMPATHIZER.  II3 

except  by  such  ?  Who  but  these  have  threaded  the  forest 
to  speak  mercy  and  comfort  to  those  red  men,  whom 
unsaintly  civilization  only  approaches  to  debauch  or  to 
destroy  ?  Who  but  these  have  taught  patiently  under  a 
tropical  sun  ;  or  in  the  lassitude  of  Asiatic  skies  have 
preached  love  to  those  whom  the  world  has  only  sought 
to  pillage  ?  Is  it  not  in  such  also  that  we  see  the  most 
sympathy  with  physical  distress  and  grief;  so  that  those 
thus  growing  in  holiness,  have  also  grown  in  tender 
watchfulness  of  the  wretched,  and  in  heroic  guardianship 
of  the  desolate  and  the  outcast  ? 

If  this  be  the  case,  the  perfect  sinlessness  of  our 
blessed  Lord  constitutes  the  feature  which,  taken  in 
connection  with  His  Humanity  and  His  Divinity,  points 
Him  to  us  not  only  as  our  sole  Mediator,  but  as  the  only 
true  sympathizer  with  us  in  our  temptations  and  griefs. 
He  appears  in  this,  His  High-priestly  office,  as  at  once 
holy  and  undefiled,  and  yet  as  tempted  at  all  points  as 
ourselves.  He  is  at  once  the  sublime  holiness  of  God, 
and  the  bearer  of  this  mass  of  human  guilt,  in  all  its 
mysterious  weight.  He  is  at  once  the  holy  Creator  of 
the  world  in  its  beauty,  evolving  it  majestically  out  of 
formless  space,  and  the  sorrowful  sacrifice  of  the  world 
in  its  sins,  staggering  under  it  wearily  up  the  road  to  the 
cross.  He  bore  the  full  load,  for  He  expiated  its  full 
guilt.  He  met  it  and  vanquished  it,  and  this  without 
sin  Himself.  And  we  may  indeed  reverently  think  that 
the  sense  of  the  wretchedness  of  sin  produced  by  His 
conquest  of  it  in  its  full  force,  is  far  deeper  than  that 
felt  by  us,  who  so  often  yield  at  its  first  approach.  Our 
perception  is  dulled  by  yielding ;  His  was  perfect  and 
unsoiled  to  the  last.  We  cannot  measure  temptation,  for 
we  give  way  at  its  first  approach,  as  would  the  most 


114  APPENDICES. 

fragile  of  bridges  when  the  freshet  begins  to  swell.  But 
He  received  its  storm  to  the  utmost,  and  He  resisted  its 
full  torrent  as  it  accumulated  against  Him  its  entire  force ; 
and  therefore  He  can  tell  what  it  is  when  we  plead  to 
Him  for  help  in  our  trials  and  temptations  whensoever 
they  beset  us.  In  Christ,  then,  we  find  perfect  knowledge 
of  sin  and  perfect  holiness,  and  with  these  the  perfect 
sympathy,  which  they  alone  can  produce. 


APPENDIX    C. 

OUR  lord's  personal  appearance. 

(p.  8i.) 

The  patristic  traditions  on  this  point  are  thus  ad- 
mirably stated  in  a  note  by  the  Oxford  Translators  of 
Tertullian,  appended  to  their  edition  of  that  Father  :  — 
"  Tertullian  seems  to  understand  the  words  of  Isaiah 
liii.  3  literally,  as  though  the  absence  of  every  thing 
highly  accounted  of  among  men  were  part  of  His  hu- 
miliation, (c.  Marc.  iii.  7,  and  adv.  Jud.  c.  14,  *nec  ad- 
spectu  quidem  honestus ;'  c.  Marc.  iii.  17,  at  length;  de 
carne  Christi,  c.  9,  very  explicitly) ;  T.  however  speaks 
of  lowliness,  of  absence  of  any  outward  dignity  or 
majesty  to  command  respect,  of  what  might  readily  be 
despised,  not  as  M.  Medina  and  others  (ap.  Moreau  t.  i, 
Hsereses  Tert.  p.  54,  Christus  indecorus)  say,  that  He 
was  '  non  speciosus  forma,  sed  fcedus  et  deformis.' 
Thus  in  the  de  c.  C. :  '  These,  Matt.  xiii.  54,  were  the 
words  of  persons  despising  His  appearance.  So  that 
He  had  not  a  body  even  of  human  dignity  (honestatis), 


OUR  lord's  personal  appearance.  115 

much  less  of  heavenly  brightness.'  It  is  also  true  (as 
Moreau  contends)  that  T.  uses  these  terms,  partly  in 
reference  to  His  sufferings  and  indignities  at  the  hands 
of  men  ;  as  1.  c.  :  '  Were  even  the  prophets  silent  as  to 
the  absence  of  dignity  (ignobili)  in  His  aspect,  His  very 
sufferings,  His  very  indignities,  speak  ;  the  sufferings 
of  a  human  flesh,  the  indignities  of  one  undignified' 
(inhonestam),  but  not  exclusively,  since  he  argues  that 
had  He  had  the  dignity  of  a  heavenly  countenance, 
they  had  not  dared  this  ;  and  adv.  Jud.  he  distinguishes 
the  '  nee  adspectu,'  &c.  from  the  rest.  T.,  on  the  other 
hand,  explains  Ps.  xlv.  2  exclusively  of  '  spiritual 
beauty,'  adv.  Marc.  iii.  17.  The  passages  of  S.  Clem. 
Alex.  Psed.  iii.  r,  rrjv  oxptv  ataxpov,  in  reference  to  Is.  liii. 
(coll.  Strom,  ii.  5),  will,  from  the  contrast,  have  the  same 
meaning,  of  contrast  with,  and  absence  of,  human  beauty. 
So  again,  very  plainly,  Strom,  vi.  17,  (p.  293,  ed.  Sylb.,) 
€VT€\r]^  is  opposed  to  a  beautifulness  which  would  fix 
the  mind  on  itself :  '  Not  without  purpose  did  the  Lord 
will  to  employ  a  lowly  form  of  body,  lest  any  praising 
the  comeliness  and  admiring  the  beauty,  should  be  dis- 
tracted from  the  things  said.'  And  Strom,  iii.  17,  p. 
202  :  '  He  Himself,  the  Head  of  the  Church,  passed 
the  life  in  the  flesh  unattractive  and  without  form  (dryS^s 
Kttt  a/xopffio^),  teaching  us  to  look  up  to  the  invisible 
(dctScs)  and  incorporeal  of  the  Divine  Cause.'  In  like 
way  when  Celsus  had  said,  that  whereas  it  was  '  impos- 
sible that  whoso  had  something  Divine  above  others, 
should  not  differ  from  others,'  but  that  His  form  '  was, 
as  they  say,  small  and  Sva-eiSh  and  abject'  (dyevh),  Ori- 
gen  admits  the  Svo-ctScs,  '  but  not,  as  Celsus  explains  it, 
abject,  nor  is  it  clearly  shown  that  it  was  small,'  (c.  Cels. 
vi.  §  65.)     S.  Basil,  again  (in  Ps.  xliv.),  says  only  nega- 


Il6  APPENDICES. 

tively,  that  it  *  does  not  celebrate  beauty  of  person,  for 
we  have  seen  Him  and  He  hath  no  beauty/  &c.  Is. 
liii.  So  S.  Aug.  in  Ps.  xliii.  §  i6  :  'As  man  He  had 
neither  beauty  nor  comeliness  ;  but  He  was  beautiful  in 
form  in  That,  whereby  He  is  "above  the  sons  of  men.'" 
Ps.  xlv.  :  '  Therefore  manifesting  that  forma  deformis 
of  the  flesh  ; '  &c.  and  on  Ps.  cxviii.,  '  The  Bridegroom 
Himself,  lovely  not  in  outward  form  but  in  excellency.' 

"  It  appears,  further,  that  these  writers  do  not  rest  on 
any  tradition,  (for  Celsus',  'they  say,'  implies,  at  most, 
only  a  current  notion  in  his  day,)  but  on  an  exposition 
of  a  prophecy ;  and,  therefore,  their  words  are  not  to  be 
taken  further  than  the  prophecy  bears,  if  interpreted  of 
the  outward  form,  '  absence  of  outward  comeliness.' 

"  This  same  passage  of  Isaiah  is  by  others  interpreted 
of  the  '  marring  of  His  countenance '  through  His  suf- 
ferings; (whence  the  Jews  thought  that  He  was  near 
*  fifty  years  old  ; ')  and  this  is  evidently  the  meaning  of 
Thaddaeus  in  the  document  from  the  Syriac,  ap.  Eus.  i. 
13,  *  of  the  power  of  His  works  and  the  mysteries  which 
He  spake  in  the  world  —  of  the  lowness  and  meanness 
and  humiliation  of  the  Man,  Who  appeared  visibly,  and 
how  He  humbled  Himself  and  died  and  minished  His 
Divinity.'  This  T.  himself  joins  with  the  other  mean- 
ing, and  S.  Aug.  gives  it  as  tAe  meaning,  in  Ps.  xliv.  §  3, 
and  in  Ps.  cxxvii.  §  8,  '  That  Bridegroom  than  Whom 
nothing  is  more  beautiful,  of  Whom  Esaias  said  a  little 
before,  "  We  saw  Him,  and  He  had  no  beauty  nor  come- 
liness." Is  then  our  Bridegroom  unlovely?  (foedus)  — 
He  seemed  unlovely  to  those  who  persecuted  Him,  and 
unless  they  had  deemed  Him  unlovely,  they  had  not 
assaulted,  had  not  scourged,  had  not  crowned  with 
thorns,  had  not  dishonored  Him  with  spittings  ;  but  be- 


OUR  LORDS  PERSONAL  APPEARANCE.      II7 

cause  He  seemed  to  them  unlovely,  they  did  those  things 
unto  Him,  for  they  had  not  the  eyes  to  which  Christ 
would  appear  lovely  —  Those  eyes  are  to  be  cleansed, 
that  they  may  be  able  to  see  that  light ; '  which  gives  a 
sort  of  comment  on  T.'s  stronger  language  de  came 
Christi,  1.  c.  Theodoret  explains  Is.  liii.  2,  3,  of  His 
sufferings  (in  Ps.  xliv.). 

"  This  passage  of  S.  Aug.   further  shows  that  these 
Fathers   did   not    think   of  what   we  should   mean  by 

*  meanness  of  countenance '  and  the  like,  but  only  a 
lowliness  of  the  outward  form,  which  (as  is  the  case 
often  now  in  such  degrees  of  moral  dignity  as  men  may 
reach  unto)  had  nothing  attractive  except  for  those  who 
had  a  certain  sympathy  with  it,  and  whose  eyes  were 
purified  to  see  the  hidden  Majesty.  Thus  Origen,  who 
admitted  the  Suo-ciScs  imputed  by  Celsus,  says  (Comm. 
in  Matt.  §  100,  t.  iii.  p.  906,  ed.  de  la  Rue  al.  Tr.  35) : 

*  A  tradition  has  come  down  to  us  of  Him,  that  there 
were  not  only  two  forms  in  Him,  one  according  to  which 
all  saw  Him,  another,  according  to  which  He  was  trans- 
figured before  His  disciples  in  the  mount,  when  His 
countenance  also  shone  as  the  sun,  but  that  He  appeared 
to  each  according  as  he  was  worthy.  And  being  the 
Same,  He  appeared  as  though  He  were  not  the  Same  to 
all ; '  (which  O.  likens  to  the  Manna,  Wisd.  xvi.  20,  21.) 

*  And  this  tradition  does  not  appear  to  me  incredible, 
whether  as  relates  to  the  body,  on  account  of  Jesus  Him- 
self, that  He  appeared  in  different  ways  to  men,  or  on 
account  of  the  very  nature  of  the  Word,  which  does  not 
appear  alike  to  all.'  And  S.  Jerome  (in  Ps.  xliv.  Ep. 
65,  ad  Princip.  §  8)  having  explained  Is.  liii.  2  of  His 
sufferings,  and  Ps.  xlv.  of  the  '  beauty  of  His  excel- 
lences in  a  sacred  and  Adorable  Body,'   subjoins,  'for 


Il8  APPENDICES. 

had  He  not  had  in  His  countenance  and  eyes  a  sort  of 
starry  lustre,  neither  had  the  Apostle  s  instantly  followed 
Him,  nor  they  who  had  come  to  seize  Him  fallen  to  the 
ground,'  and  this  (on  S.  Matt.  ix.  9)  he  explains  not 
to  belong  to  the  human  countenance,  but  the  Divinity 
gleaming  through.  *  Certainly  the  very  brightness  and 
majesty  of  the  hidden  Divinity,  which  shone  through  in 
His  human  countenance,  could  at  first  sight  draw  be- 
holders to  Himself.  For  if  the  magnet  and  amber  are 
said  to  have  the  power  to  join  to  themselves  rings  and 
straws,  how  much  more  could  the  Lord  of  all  creatures 
draw  to  Himself  whom  He  would  ! '  " 


APPENDIX   D. 
(p.  104.) 

CHRIST   NOT   TO    BE   LOCALIZED   IN   A   PATH. 

The  futility  of  the  attempt  to  follow  Christ  simply 
as  a  human  leader,  appears  not  merely  from  the  reasons 
stated  in  the  text,  but  from  the  want  of  an  adequate 
motive  power.  Contrast,  in  this  light,  the  morality 
which  springs  from  the  endeavor  to  obey  certain  pre- 
cepts, or  to  pursue  a  particular  path,  with  that  which 
is  inspired  by  love  to  Him  Who  is  the  divine  sacrifice 
for  sin,  and  which  is  the  fruit  of  the  holy  Spirit  of  God 
indwelling  in  the  heart.  View  this  contrast  in  the 
following  relations :  — 

(i.)  Law,  as  an  exterior  rule,  is,  in  its  nature,  a 
restraint  on  the  natural  will;  saying,  "Thou  shalt  not 


CHRIST    NOT   TO    BE    LOCALIZED    IN    A    PATH.        II9 

do  that  which  thou  dost  wish,  or  thou  shalt  do  that 
which  thou  wishest  not."  It  is,  therefore,  a  battle  and 
a  bondage.  It  marshals  the  will's  wild  power  in  per- 
petual warfare  with  an  external  yoke.  But  love  is  an 
inner  energy,  absorbing  and  uniting  with  itself  the  most 
secret  purposes  of  the  heart ;  so  that  the  whole  nature, 
in  sweet  accord,  cries,  "  I  will."  The  first  forces  us 
into  a  path  to  pursue  which  is  beyond  our  strength,  and 
at  each  step  of  which  we  stumble  and  fall.  The  second 
leads  us  to  Christ  Himself;  and  with  His  love  planted 
by  Him  in  the  heart,  to  follow  Him  is  a  joy  and  de- 
light. 

(2.)  Law  is  superficial,  and  deals  with  observances. 
It  says,  "  Perform  this  or  that  ceremony,  submit  to 
this  or  that  outer  discipline."  It  tends  to  make  relig- 
ion, therefore,  a  superstition  ;  to  turn  it  to  the  slavish 
performance  of  rites,  and  the  idolizing  of  symbol's  ;  and 
this  with  a  heart  unspiritual  and  rebellious.  But  love 
deals  with  the  essence,  and  elevates  the  whole  nature 
to  the  obedience  and  worship  of  God. 

(3.)  Law  works  but  for  the  moment.  Its  labor  is 
like  that  which  placed  for  a  day,  along  the  desert  over 
which  the  Russian  empress  travelled,  transplanted  and 
rootless  trees,  to  be  removed  when  the  procession 
passed  by;  so  that  the  next  morning  the  landscape 
was  as  sterile  and  unadorned  as  before.  Law  puts  up 
for  the  moment's  use,  upon  the  sterile  soil  of  an  un- 
changed heart,  the  rootless  foliage  of  virtue  ;  but  soon, 
when  the  occasion  passes,  this  foliage  is  removed,  or 
dies  out.  But  love,  though  working  more  slowly,  sows 
a  divine  growth,  which  draws  its  support  from  the  heart 
itself,  and  which  continues  while  eternity  lasts.  Law 
cannot  fit  for  heaven,  for  it  only  sticks  the  semblance 


I20  APPENDICES. 

of  heaven's  principles  on  the  outside ;  but  love  does 
fit  for  heaven,  for  it  plants  those  principles  within. 
Law  may  cage  up  the  offender,  but  it  cannot  change 
his  nature.  It  may  bring  him  to  the  scaffold,  but  it 
cannot  reform  his  life.  As  it  can  only  supply  the  outer 
appearance,  so  it  can  only  repress  the  outer  act :  it  has 
neither  fetter  nor  axe  to  affect  the  immortal  soul.  But 
love  frees  not  merely  from  sin  as  a  tempter,  but  from 
the  law  as  a  bondage.  It  liberates,  it  ennobles,  it  assim- 
ilates the  creature  in  his  sympathies  and  desires  with 
the  all-holy  God. 

(4.)  And  then  law  leaves  the  offender  in  despair, 
under  the  burden  of  unreduceable  and  accumulating 
guilt.  It  says,  "  You  broke  the  law,  and  for  that  these 
penalties  are  assigned  ;  "  and  so  on  through  irremedia- 
ble transgression  and  measureless  condemnation.  But 
love  says,  "  All  this  was  canceled  by  the  cross.  Christ 
fulfilled  this  law  perfectly  for  you  ;  Christ  suffered  its 
penalties  fully  for  you,  that  you  may  arise  and  obey  it 
for  yourself"  To  one  oppressed  by  the  law's  weight 
there  is  no  motive,  for  there  is  no  hope  of  removing 
the  sentence  of  condemnation  to  which  each  day's  new 
transgression  adds.  But  love  gives  hope  and  strength  ; 
and  in  the  atonement  of  the  Saviour,  and  the  sureness 
of  His  grace,  supplies  the  stimulus  and  the  power  of 
a  new  and  holy  life.  Law  immures  the  eternal  spirit 
in  the  grave  of  hopeless  sin  ;  love  graces  it  with  a  saint's 
pardon,  and  wings  it  with  a  seraph's  strength,  and 
speeds  it  to  God's  own  home. 

The  whole  question,  then,  is  one  of  marCs  power  as 
distinguished  from  GocTs  power,  of  our  feeble  purpose  as 
contrasted  with  His  divine  grace.  A  holy  example  can- 
not give  us  strength  :   the  strength  must  be  from  above. 


CHRIST    NOT   TO    BE    LOCALIZED    IN    A    PATH.        121 

It  is  here,  then,  we  see  the  full  meaning  of  St.  Paul's 
words  in  2  Cor.  v.  i6,  17:  "Though  we  have  known 
Christ  after  the  flesh,  yet  now  henceforth  know  we  Him 
no  more.  Therefore,  if  any  man  be  in  Christ,  he  is  a  new 
creature."  "  For,"  writes  Archbishop  Cranmer,  "if  we 
will  be  the  heirs  of  God  and  of  everlasting  life,  we  must 
be  born  again,  and  sanctified,  or  made  holy,  as  apper- 
tains to  the  children  of  the  most  Holy  God.  Now  this 
new  birth,  or  sanctification,  the  Holy  Ghost  works  in  us  ; 
and  therefore  he  is  called  the  Holy  Ghost,  because  every 
thing  that  is  sanctified  or  hallowed,  is  sanctified  or  made 
holy  by  Him.  "Wherefore,  when  the  Holy  Ghost  is  not  in 
man,  then  it  is  not  possible  that  he  should  be  holy,  al- 
though he  did  all  the  good  works  under  the  sun.  And 
for  this  cause  St.  Paul,  writing  to  the  Romans,  calls  the 
Holy  Ghost  the  Spirit  of  sanctification,  that  is  to  say, 
the  Spirit  that  maketh  holiness.  Learn,  therefore,  good 
children,  that  all  we  must  be  made  holy  and  new  men  by 
the  virtue  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  that  we  cannot  attain 
this  holiness  by  our  own  strength  or  works.  .  .  Now  the 
Holy  Ghost  works  by  His  word  in  this  manner.  First, 
he  that  believes  the  gospel,  and  receives  the  doctrine  of 
Christ,  is  made  the  son  of  God,  as  St.  John  witnesses  in 
his  gospel,  saying,  As  many  as  receive  Him,  He  hath  given 
them  power  to  be  made  the  children  of  God.  For  when 
we  believe  in  Christ,  and  are  baptized,  then  we  are  born 
again,  and  are  made  the  children  of  God.  And  when 
we  are  His  children,  then  He  gives  the  Holy  Ghost  into 
our  hearts,  as  St.  Paul  testifies,  writing  thus :  Forasmuch 
as  you  are  now  the  children  of  God,  therefore  God  hath 
sent  the  Spirit  Of  His  Son  into  your  hearts,  which  crieth, 
Abba,  Father.  And  when  we  have  received  the  Holy 
Ghost,  He  kindles  in  our  hearts  true  love  toward  God,  as 


122  APPENDICES. 

St.  Paul  writes  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  in  the  fifth 
chapter.  The  love  of  God,  saith  he,  is  poured  abroad 
in  our  hearts  by  the  Holy  Ghost  which  is  given  unto  us. 
And  where  the  true  love  of  God  reigneth,  there  are  God's 
commandments  kept,  and  there  beginneth  a  certain  obe- 
dience to  His  will  and  pleasure.  .  .  .  Furthermore,  the 
Holy  Ghost  doth  stay  the  flesh  and  the  lusts  of  the  same, 
and  helps  us  to  overcome  them,  that  we  be  not  carried 
away  by  them,  but  may  continue  in  cleanness  and  holi- 
ness of  life.  These  are  the  benefits  and  works  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  in  us."  1 

1  Cramner  On  Catechism,  Sermon  III. 


\JX^-^^ 


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v,^ 


